There is a new rule that will come into effect Saturday (October 1) where food delivery companies like Talabat, Carriage, and Deliveroo will no longer be allowed to use third-party drivers. Delivery companies will only be allowed to use drivers registered under their company to deliver food and in cars with clear branding and information (no more plain white generic cars).
Since the majority of the drivers (and riders) are contracted from third parties due to visa restrictions and limitations, this is gonna cause a major disruption in the food delivery service.
So starting this Saturday, expect slower delivery times, many restaurants showing up as busy, or restaurants showing as not available.
50 replies on “Food Delivery Chaos from Saturday”
great news for long term
Only if delivery companies end up getting a large visa quota or else this is gonna bad for the industry.
Correct me if I’m wrong but that’s great for the drivers?
it’s great for everyone cus it stops the loophole that restaurants are using to go around the delivery charge law (0.250 within the area, 0.500 outside the area).
I don’t see the relation between the two. It’s actually not great for anyone. It’s not great for the restaurants cuz they will have less orders, it’s not great for delivery companies since they will be able to take less orders which means less money, and it’s not great for the customers since delivery will now take longer and most likely become more expensive.
Absolutely. It’s not good for anyone. Sooner or later, it’ll be reversed.
Great for kuwait, most food delivery drivers are Human Trafficed House Drivers that left their house for Side Gigs.
Online Food Delivery Should Close, their Fees are over 30% and have destroyed culinary creativity in the long run and you can see it with Virtual Generic Kitchens that cook for over 10 “Virtual Brands” Online with the same Food and Paper Bag Branding.
So your idea of progress is shutting down businesses and taking a step backwards?
Not really since a lot will probably get fired now
That will probably be the case but will it save the ones remaining from the abuse of the third party companies?
won’t many drivers lose employment?
Yeah I believe so
yeap. reduces traffic on road. so what the restaurants and delivery companies are already gouging the customers with high food costs. let them feel the heat. surely there will be a loophole that will be exploited by the companies in the coming months, just wait and watch.
PS: I know this might be a unpopular opinion.
Less bikes on the road won’t reduce traffic. You want to reduce traffic improve public transportation. Also don’t blame restaurants for the high food costs, blame inflation.
Talabat takes a min. 20-25% from restaurants.
And give only bits of the left over for the the drivers.
Restaurants pricing is higher cause of inflation? Really? Staff work over 12 hours without overtime for as low as 150 kd. There is alot of profit. Just the spread is very biased.
I know of friends who have literally taken recipes off Google, given to cloud kitchen, set up Restaurants on talabat, and are generating income. I am happy for my friends. Its easy money. But its increasing so many options for the customers. Talabat has become like souq jumma where everyone is showcasing the same day thing.
You’re clearly talking with some knowledge of the industry, but not enough to have a real idea of the situation.
There isn’t a lot of profit for restaurants. When you consider the cost of food, the cost of the product being sold, the percentage given to delivery companies, the staff salaries, the rent, and a bunch of other things, the amount of money left over for restaurants isn’t much. So what you’re saying is not true. Also staff working overtime is common, but that’s why there are laws in place that force companies to pay overtime. If you’re aware of a place that isn’t paying their staff overtime you can report them.
Your friends who’ve taken recipes off google and set up cloud kitchens, that’s so easy to do yes. It’s the same around the world. It’s actually easier now since they don’t even need to set up a kitchen, they can just rent kitchen space inside a cloud kitchen. But are they profitable? Highly doubt it. The restaurant industry is cut-throat like everywhere else in the world and new places will pop up daily and a lot more will close down daily. Also tell your friends to pay their staff overtime.
More brilliant decisions
I work as a Logistics Manager. I know the market nicely, and this is going to make so many people jobless. The candidates are scared already and quitting because of the fear of deportation. My employers invested in a massive fleet of vehicles, but could never get a quota from the relevant authority. Now, we have this new law all of a sudden.
1st of October will be a day to remember for this sector in Kuwait.
They will reverse it in a few days.
Will this affect other services like Taw9eel and Drops?
Don’t think so, they don’t have to deliver quickly like restaurants have to
wouldn’t this also result in an increase in charges from talabat as there’s lot of demand for smt with less resources? ion wanna be payin 1-1.5KD for every order.
Yup
The new regulation doesnt say Deliveroo and Talabat ect cant use delivery companies. It says the delivery company must visibly show their own company name and have drivers that are on the company visa file.
Third party drivers are not on their company visa hence they can’t use them…
Anymore ideas to make this wrecking ball bigger ? I thought we are all working on boosting the economy of this beautiful country. Shame that consequences are not taken into consideration.
You’d think this Blog would be all for Legalized Workers with higher Salaries. When the workers are on the Delivery Companies Visa they can negotiate for higher pay and lobby for Medical Insurance, holidays …
They are legal workers, they work for logistics companies that provide delivery service. Also everyone has free healthcare and holidays, where do you live?
They have govt. Healthcare. We all know how it is.
They don’t have weekend off. They hav an option of 1 off but because of their targets they need to work on offs too to make min wage.
The Ground Reality. These delivery companies does not only recruit from third party but also people whose visa article are 20, 22 and 18. They just provide a delivery bike or car with basic salary 200-250 kd and remaining is commission per delivery. Which means most of the talabat or deliveroo are illegal drivers. These driver have no safety no medical issurance, they drive in their own risk. most of them even don’t have bikers license. and this is best any police inspection they use promo code “WAASTA” to release the drivers with vehicle. lets say even if these drivers resign or get terminated they can’t claim their Indemnity. So i think its that these delivery app company must protect their workers providing residence.
Don’t be lazy !!! Buy vegetables and meat and make food yourself. If you don’t have fridge it your house get one?
hard to believe the rest of the region is flying forward at the speed of the light while closer to home…
anyway, its no biggie…..restaurants can use uber eats instead…..oh waaaait….. 😉
this reminds me of the ‘expats cant buy pickups’ law. i mean, c’mon, how many expats in total are going to use their pickups as taxis? and who the hell uses a waneet as a taxi anymore anyway?
Not about taxi but to transport goods. And trust me alot of them do. I have 30+ pickups in my company and all of the drivers tend to do part time as transporters after work with company pickups
This is terrible, I operate numerous restaurants. In reality, this helps the big guys, like Talabat and Deliveroo. I’ll explain.
They decreed a similar, almost identical rule during COVID, where you could only deliver using drivers on your own residency, with valid health cards, wearing your uniform. In reality, they allowed any restaurant or food aggregator to deliver via third party so long as they had a valid contract.
What this did was squeeze out independent delivery restaurant operators and forced us to deliver via Talabat / Deliveroo and third parties. Curfew passes were granted to our third party drivers, that we hastily had to arrange, at exorbitant prices, because we presented such contracts to MOI. These guys then had to wear our uniforms.
Since then, many restaurants have not gone back to having their own delivery. We were effectively squeezed out of our delivery services and had to go the big guys on their own term or else we don’t sell.
The big guys know this too, Talabat / Deliveroo literally tell you that to scare you: “You wont be able to deliver soon with your fleet, join our service or else you’re off our platform if you don’t by the end of this year”. We’ve had go to Talabat and Deliveroo on their delivery on crazy commission because these use these decrees in negotiations to force you to get on their delivery.
The same will happen here. In reality, they will allow Talabat / Deliveroo to deliver via third party companies. As with COVID, this was explicitly forbidden in the decree, but in fact they allowed them from day one. Without using these companies, entire sectors will collapse. With these decrees, they’re actually forcing us to shift business to these guys and the delivery companies, many of which are owned by individuals with connections in government. Decrees are ambiguous on purpose, they appear stern in the public arena in their press releases. In reality, there is a lot of fine print and, more often than not, it is done to benefit vested interests.
As in COVID times, they said you cannot deliver unless drivers are under your residency, but they did not state that you cannot utilize third parties with valid contracts.
The solution is never more regulation. More regulation squeezes out SMEs and raises the barriers to entry. This in turn results in a less competitive market. Less competition equals higher prices being passed on to the consumer.
Why is there a decree that says restaurants can only apply 250 fils within the area and 500 fils outside the area when that same decree does not apply to delivery companies? We have to deliver in 20 minutes or else customers have an emotional break down. How do you want us to be viable financially and have a fleet big enough to serve you in 20 to 30 minutes at those delivery fees? We can’t! We have to go to Talabat and Deliveroo that end up charging us more and charging you as a customer more! Why do we as restaurants receive so much hate?
Wholesalers, food aggregators, and delivery companies kill us with ever rising costs. Most of the time, we can’t pass these costs to customers because people are price sensitive and rightfully so. We are not to blame! Yet, we get all the heat and hate!
Moreover, why do we have a limit of number of drivers we can have on our residency and they don’t? These are artificial barriers that are not good for consumers ultimately! I am a law abiding citizen. I want to charge customers 500 fils. However, I don’t have enough visas to get drivers to fulfil orders! What is the result? I have to go to Talabat / Deliveroo / Third Parties, that will charge us and you more. They can do that because that decree of 250 fils and 500 fils does not apply to them. They get more business from us and you by force of law!
Free enterprise benefits all. Market regulation, micromanaging an economy does not work.
When these decrees are issued, the first inclination of people should be to ask: who does this really benefit? Engage in such thought experiments. Reverse engineer it. Someone usually befits. Usually, it is not who you initially think it is.
Lastly, let’s assume that you want to establish a delivery company to take advantage of lax residency quotes that they have. You can’t! They’ve stopped issuing them for years. Oh and you need to get MOI approval no matter what.
In conclusion, people assume that restaurant owners are sitting on mountains of cash. That we’re greedy humans that are out to get you with price hikes. We don’t, half of the time we’re losing money and we need to make the commutative of the good months be better than the cumulative of the bad months. As I explained earlier, we barley can pass on the rising costs on consumers. The failure rate in this business is crazy. It’s already hard, these decrees make it harder and make the sleepless nights more abundant.
Sincerely,
An absolutely frustrated restaurant owner
Guys sorry but Talabat or deliveroo are not delivery companies.
this rule is good for the market in long run. it makes all the delivery companies regulated. stops human traficking. secures the rights of drivers and gives them medical protection. it may mean higher service fees as the cost will eventually drain down to the users.
Talabat are like the largest delivery company in kuwait, what do you mean they’re not a delivery company lol
if u consider McDonalds is a burger company than yes 🙂
Are you going to tell us they are instead a “happiness company”, or a real estate company instead?
Your Comment made me laugh.
I’m wondering whether Kuwaitis can fill this gap or not now. Since most GCC countries have both local and expats working as delivery drivers.
All in all, here’s a chance to get things back on the right track.
I highly doubt Emiratis are delivering food but in any case, I would say Kuwaitis would be over qualified for a delivery job and so would most expats. It’s not like in the States where you could do this for extra cash or part time so most people in Kuwait already have better jobs or higher paying ones to want to become a delivery driver.
It’s not about being over qualified. It’s about the money being worthwhile.
That’s the same thing
No it’s not. There are people with PHD’s who deliver for apps like Deliveroo (abroad) because they don’t make enough money at their career-oriented job.
People with PHD’s are overqualified to be delivery drivers. At least google what being overqualified for a job means before leaving silly comments online.
kuwaiti’s are not over qualifed. They do a simple job and get overpaid. Ex: An Expat Secretary will be paid 350 to 500 kd based on experience. A kuwait secretary will get paid 800 above for the same job and task
If you think any highschool graduate or university student of any nationality is considered underqualified to be a delivery driver then you’re just stupid.
Who said a Kuwaiti secretary takes 800kd?? Both are paid the same.
Bro I thought u were full of shit but its actually happening.