Live interview with Dominic Millioud, EAT.ch Country Manager

18 May 2020

How do food habit changes propel delivery?

With restaurants closed, work-from-home and a lot of social distancing during the past months, we definitely had to change some of our behaviours. The one that tends to appear at fixed hour

So, what will you have for lunch today and who is in charge? 

Food delivery is the answer to many of us and to understand exactly how much the Swiss rely on it, we asked Dominic Millioud, Country Manager of Switzerland’s biggest online food ordering platform, EAT.CH by Just Eat.

Some quick facts:

  • Eat.ch started operating in 2007. It functions as a marketplace and as a delivery, by employing their own drivers. 

  • The most important customer at its beginning was the business owners, to get more restaurants on board and have them on their platform. Now, with more than 50 cuisines to choose from, the biggest challenge is to offer the best customer experience to the final client, the one who orders food. 

  • This year, in January, eat.ch reached 500.000 orders and the period that followed and made all of us stay mostly in our own homes, the number of orders grew even more. 


 

Changes in food habits

 

Cooking took over our lives, but is it here to stay?

Dominic says that cooking wasn’t a choice made by us, we were forced to feed ourselves 2-3 times a day, which might be more cost-effective, but very time-consuming. 

The Swiss have changed their ordering habits during this pandemics towards getting lunch more often delivered because while working from home it is the best choice for not getting interrupted.

Lunch was not a big part of their orders because of the canteen culture in Switzerland.

Other specific days of the week and times have also changed, but one thing doesn’t seem to change: with half of their orders, Pizza Margherita is the nr. 1 ordered dish on eat.ch


 

COVID-19 has accelerated the whole business of food-delivery and the team behind eat.ch doesn’t expect it to go back to how it was before.

Trends mentioned by Dominic: 

  • Home delivery has established as an alternative

  • Homecooking will go down



 

FoodTech Scene in Switzerland 

 

Dominic bets on customisation which for eat.ch means going beyond filters. 

They have a customised machine learning algorithm that can help with suggestions when it comes to choosing something that the client would like. The recommendations are based on his previous experience, but also on the order history of others that have similar preferences.

This way they can anticipate needs and also help choose more easily. 

 

When it comes to other trends, voice ordering was mentioned as an option, while drone delivery as good as it sounds in theory, in practice is way too regulated to be considered as a solution. 


 

Watch the whole interview with Dominic to find out if healthy option demands increased and other facts that Covid-19 put a spotlight on in the food industry. 

 

OTHER INITIATIVES

 

On the 27th of May, we’ll go deeper into the healthy food section with a webinar. 

Together with Siddhi Mehta, Rhythm 108 CEO, Marine Favre, Marine Favre - Head of Digital Siradis.ch and Arman Anatürk, CEO Foodhack we will talk more about the changes in consumer behaviours, get good case practices around communicating with consumers.

 

In our Insights section, you can read about our past initiatives and also you have the possibility to watch past interviews with Sergio Rossi’s CEO, Lastminute’s CEO and many more. 

 

Don’t miss the weekly episodes from #SustainableAfter, a Loomish Initiative with a balanced mix of guests from the start-up world and world-renowned brands.

 

Free report available on how Covid-19 has impacted the online purchasing behaviour in the food sector, compared to 12 months before.

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