Uber Eats has big plans.

After Delivery Hero left the German market, the delivery division of the American driver service group wants to expand significantly.

"We started in Germany in May last year, are currently in 14 cities and want to start in at least 50 more cities this year," Eve Henrikson, new head of Europe, Middle East and Africa, told the FAZ. "That means almost every week a new city.”

Bastian Benrath

Editor in Business.

  • Follow I follow

With this, Uber wants to counter the American competition from Doordash and Wolt as well as Lieferando – these two and Uber Eats have largely shared the German food delivery business since the Berlin group left.

The growth should succeed with a mixture of placing orders with the delivery services of restaurants and deliveries by the company's own logistics partners.

The focus should be on the latter.

“The majority, around 80 percent of deliveries, are made by Uber drivers from our delivery partners,” promises Henrikson.

This frees restaurants from the limited capacity of their own couriers and gives those without their own suppliers the opportunity to bring food home.

Burger King, Starbucks, Subway - and Hans im Glück

She also sees the greatest growth opportunities for Uber in the logistics business: "Deliveries by logistics companies have so far made up less than 10 percent of the market in Germany." In Great Britain or France, this figure is 40 to 60 percent.

"So the potential is incredibly big."

Customers should order from around 2,000 restaurants that Uber has under contract.

These include chains such as Burger King, Starbucks and Subway, but also smaller brands such as the "Hans im Glück" burger restaurants or the Berlin institution "Burgermeister".

The average delivery time is between 30 and 35 minutes, says Henrikson.

The focus on Uber's own delivery is largely based on the wishes of the restaurants.

"We can see that our restaurant partners would very much like to have delivery via our logistics partners."

The Uber model: partnerships for everything

Uber does not employ couriers employed directly by the company, the company takes a different approach than Wolt and Lieferando – as it does on the part of its driving service, where third-party companies transport the passengers.

In Henrikson's remarks, the word 'partnerships' comes up a lot: restaurant partners here, delivery partners there.

This keeps the company flexible, because contracts with companies can be terminated more easily than those with employees.

“We have the flexibility to adapt to one country.

And that's also one of the reasons why we can be successful,” says Henrikson.

So far, however, Uber has not had to draw this card in Germany.

The growth of Uber Eats is pointing upwards across Europe: Since the beginning of the pandemic, sales have tripled, in Germany, according to Henrikson, the app has the strongest growth of all providers.

In addition, the food delivery division is profitable in the operating result from continued business activities - at least before taxes, interest, depreciation and special effects.

That's not a given, even in this form, for delivery services -- Delivery Hero has never turned a profit on an organic basis and has just endured a painful plunge in its share price as its plans to reach profitability disappointed investors.

"Europe plays a big role there," says Henrikson about the profitability of her division.

And although food delivery services in particular have recently attracted attention and the goal of many delivery companies is to offer an app where you can simply order everything for your daily needs, Uber in Germany continues to focus on the delivery of meals .

Born in Saxony-Anhalt

“The number one focus for us is food delivery,” says Henrikson.

"We'll have to see how that develops in terms of food delivery.

We don't have any concrete plans yet, but we think that demand will increase here too.” In France, for example, Uber offers a food delivery service in cooperation with Carrefour.

Henrikson, 41, joined Uber last summer after six years as online boss of British supermarket chain Tesco.

Despite her English-sounding name, she is originally from Germany: she was born in Saxony-Anhalt in 1980.

After a double university degree in Germany and England and first positions in the automotive industry and fashion retail, she stayed in Great Britain for personal reasons.

Having spent her childhood in the GDR still shapes her, especially in e-commerce.

She says: “I had a very different experience of shopping as a child.

That was much more limited.”