INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
takeout marketplace Just Eat has announced a 30-day emergency support package for restaurants on its platform to help them through
partner restaurants in the form of a commission rebate of one-third (33%) on all commissions paid to Just Eat by restaurants; and via the
meet its standard conditions, such as being registered with the relevant local authority as a food business and having the required hygiene
place.Currently Just Eat has around 35,700 restaurants on its platform in the U.K., with delivery available to 95% of U.K
MD, said:These are some of the most challenging times the restaurants we work with have ever been through
helping them maintain their operations and support their people.The food delivery industry has a crucial role to play at this time of
national crisis and it is only right that as the market leader in the UK Just Eat steps up to help our independent partners so they can keep
delivering for the communities that need them.In the U.K
and elsewhere there is rising concern about the economic impact of COVID-19 on the hospitality sector as people are told to stay away from
social spaces.On Monday the U.K
government advised people not to go to bars and restaurants or other social spaces in a bid to try to limit the spread of COVID-19
Although, unlike many other European countries, it has not yet issued strict quarantine measures such as ordering hospitality industry
businesses to close their doors and citizens to work at home where possible.On-demand food delivery remains one of the services that
continues to operate even in locked down EU Member States
However, with gig economy business models not typically offering platform workers an employment safety net of benefits such as sick pay, the
entire sector has come under fresh scrutiny for the legal status it assigns to delivery couriers, given the heightened risks posed to them
unspecified support initiatives for couriers, as well as for groups including the vulnerable and isolated, and frontline workers
delivered by restaurants with their own delivery capability
Its commission for such orders is a maximum of 14%, it added.Some on-demand food delivery startups operating in Europe which do rely on gig
workers to make deliveries have already announced emergency support funds to help platform workers who fall ill or need to self isolate
couriers to access claimed support.
