Meal Delivery Companies

Many people enjoy the convenience of having prepared meals delivered and restaurant employees who are drivers engaged in delivery operations are assigned to Classification 9079(1), Restaurants, as General Inclusions. However, not all restaurants offer delivery or employ delivery drivers. Meal delivery companies have emerged to fill this need and have become very popular. There are two common business models for meal delivery companies.

Many meal delivery service companies have arrangements with restaurants to purchase prepared meals directly from the restaurant and then resell the meals to the consumer upon delivery. In these cases, the company generates revenue from the sale of purchased products, which is consistent with store operations. Like these meal delivery service companies, many stores deliver the products that they sell and not all stores have conventional “brick and mortar” store facilities where customers buy products. Meal delivery companies that purchase the meals from restaurants or other concerns and sell the meals to consumers are classified as 8017(1), Store – retail – N.O.C.

A second model for meal delivery companies is to charge delivery fees. In these cases, the meals are not purchased by the delivery company but are picked up from the restaurant or other concern and delivered to the consumer for a delivery fee that is paid by either the restaurant or other concern or directly by the consumer. These fee-based meal delivery services are classified as 7198(1), Parcel Delivery and Messenger Service Companies, subject to the classification’s requirements that (1) less than 10% of the individual parcels and packages delivered weigh in excess of one hundred pounds, and (2) less than 10% of all deliveries have a total combined weight of all items delivered at any one stop exceeding two hundred pounds.