Doom for eating out? But, 'old habits die hard'

The demise of many eateries due to the coronavirus is sparking a boom in food delivery services. Edith Lu reports from Hong Kong.

It was nearly 10 pm on a Monday, food delivery worker Kai Lun had just delivered his 36th and last food order for the day to a residential building in North Point, preparing to head home on his two-wheeler.

He's just one of, possibly, hundreds of food delivery riders who had been forced to take up the job in the past three months for a living, as the Hong Kong economy totters, with businesses closed down by the coronavirus pandemic, triggering widespread staff layoffs, or workers having to take indefinite no-pay leave.

Lun has to contend with toiling for up to 11 hours a day, starting from 11:30 in the morning. On an average day, he gets 30 to 35 orders, sometimes 40 on weekends — far more than before the virus struck.

As the majority of workers remain confined to and working from home, with the government's strict social distancing measures in place to halt the spread of the virus, the demand for food delivery services has gone through the roof.

Food delivery service boosted

Uber Eats — an online food ordering and delivery platform — is reaping a bountiful harvest from the trend, having seen orders from the city's residential areas double in recent days, compared with the start of the year. Another such platform, Deliveroo, which got off the ground in Hong Kong five years ago, has also reported its food delivery orders in the first quarter of this year having soared about 50 percent, compared with the fourth quarter in 2019.

The delivery business is largely driven by new customers living in the city's outskirts. Deliveroo found that Tin Shui Wai and Fan Ling in the New Territories, both districts not far from the boundary between the city and the mainland, posted an almost three-fold increase in the company's orders in the past few months, followed by Tuen Mun, Tsuen Wan, Tai Po and Tseung Kwan O, which saw orders more than doubled.

Stella Chu, 26, who works in a local bank, said she has been ordering nearly 10 meals a week from online platforms after she started working from home three months ago.

"It's a convenient choice for me. Though I'm at home, I'm still busy working and have no time going out for groceries or cooking," she said.

As she's a regular online meal customer, Chu has opted for subscription membership of some platforms, whereby she enjoys unlimited free delivery after paying a flat fee monthly.

"We've seen a surge in orders per user," said a spokesman for Uber Eats. "People are now relying on food delivery applications more than ever, especially for families who don't usually cook. We've had delivery riders tending to the same customer three times a day."