Shopping Platform Noon Expand its Reach to Food Delivery with “Noon Food”
Noon, the online supermarket giant in the Middle East would now join forces with local restaurants to bring food delivery quick and fast to the households in UAE. The new venture which is called “Noon Food” is dedicated to supporting local dine-out places and restaurants that are affected by the Covid-19 pandemic.
As stated by Mohamed Alabbar, “ Virus had a huge impact on online businesses and industries across UAE. With more challenges to come, we are focusing on supporting small and local food businesses that have been serving food to people from decades. He also stated that when virus hit the country, the F&B industry had little choice but to turn to aggregators who were charging up to 35% commission structures. He mentioned the delivery logistics platforms in his statement and said that the F&B industry is the beating heart of the economy and we should think beyond profit and support and protect it at all costs.
“Noon Food’s” motive is to offer low commissions on orders and fair rates to the Food industry so that it doesn’t affect the business and the employees working in the industry. The commission as put forward by Noon will be no more than 5% as compared to other F&B delivery services. Noon Food will be a part of Noon’s existing online shopping app offering additional incentives for businesses who join the program. According to a statement, Business collaborators can utilize the Noon Food service as a host platform for their online retail, or use the company’s established delivery service. Additional services businesses can use is its large customer database along with the payment gateway and Noon’s delivery network which runs across UAE.
Faraz Khalid, Chief Executive of Noon said, Noon Food is a restaurant-first platform built specifically for food operators as we believe that the need of the hour is to support the F&B industry and small restaurants which are significant contributors in the economy.
The dispute arises as online delivery platforms were firm on their decision of no reduction in fees when Covid-19 struck the industry and were forcing restaurants to provide further discounts which would bring them on the edge. Most restaurants had to turn to online deliveries as the country went into complete lockdown and even now when the market is slowly opening up, restaurants have to follow the social distancing guidelines which limit the operation.
To find a solution to their problems, local restaurants came with their own delivery service GoFood app to put an end to the monopoly created by established delivery services. With just 2% on orders, many local restaurants joined forces with them. The market as of today is mainly dominated by Careem Now, Zomato, and Talabat.
Noon has put their best foot forward by launching “ Noon Food ” but it is yet to see how local businesses react to this opportunity. We appreciate the effort Noon is making to rescue the local and small food businesses that were previously withheld from profiting by the high fees charged by aggregators.
