London (AFP)

Unhappy deliverers in France, court sentence in Spain, withdrawal from Germany: Times are tough for Deliveroo meal delivery company in an ultra-competitive sector with social practices singled out.

The UK platform has been a tremendous success since its launch in 2013, taking advantage of the appetite of urban youth who, portable by hand, order burgers, pizzas and other sushi at home or in the office.

Like an Uber for taxis, which has its own delivery service Uber Eats, Deliveroo has helped revolutionize the restaurant sector. But some flaws appear, between fragile financial performances and precarious working conditions for its deliverers.

These couriers, mostly young men, are recognizable by the imposing green backpacks they wear while crisscrossing the streets of big cities.

They have the status of self-employed, challenged in many countries, which deprives them of the minimum wage and paid leave to which they would be entitled as an employee. In addition, they must provide their own bike and smartphone.

- Revolt -

The social conflict is particularly acute in France where the company faces a wind of revolt of its deliverymen who denounce the new tariff schedule, much less interesting according to them, as well as exhausting work rhythms.

Some are now calling for a boycott of the platform, which ensures that deliverers earn on average much more than the SMIC.

The situation is all the more critical for Deliveroo as France represents its second market after the United Kingdom. In France, the platform works with 10,000 partner restaurants in 200 cities and relies on 11,000 deliverers.

This dispute in France comes days after a resounding conviction in Spain where the court has estimated that Deliveroo has passed as independent hundreds of delivery men who should have been declared as employees.

The British company, which will appeal, has avoided paying 1.2 million euros in social contributions to these delivery men. Other trials of the same type are planned this year in Spain.

The "low cost" model of the sector is thus disputed, at a time when competition is raging in Europe. Deliveroo is forced to leave Germany, where its performance was not up to expectations, to focus on other high growth markets in Europe and Asia-Pacific.

- Amazon to the rescue? -

The platform ran up against the market leader Lieferando, owned by the Dutch Takeaway. The latter is also in the process of merging with another British platform, Just Eat, to create a European heavyweight.

"The time of the reconciliations came in the overcrowded food delivery sector," warns Maxine Vogt, an analyst at research firm Euromonitor International. "There are more than twenty companies in the delivery of meals without counting supermarkets online," he says.

Having a critical size is essential for these players who invest heavily to grow, at the risk of dropping their profitability.

Deliveroo is not beneficiary but investors continue to trust the company, whose development at high speed allows it to be in the narrow circle of unicorns, these unlisted technology companies worth more than a billion dollars .

Deliveroo even interests Amazon, which invested in its capital during a fundraising in May, raising speculation on the ambitions of the US giant in this sector.

The platform intends to use this new money to hire qualified staff for its London headquarters, reach more customers and launch new products.

But the road is also fraught with pitfalls since this participation raises the curiosity of the guardian of the competition in the United Kingdom, which looks into the file before perhaps to open a formal investigation.

© 2019 AFP