Melbourne food delivery: UberEATS, Deliveroo, Foodora burgers put the test
GETTING food delivered to your doorstep from Melbourne’s best restaurants is better in theory than practice. What is the best service and which is most likely to stuff up the order? We put them to the test.
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MOST Melburnians would have tried a food delivery service at least once.
Whether you love the convenience of ordering meals from your mobile phone or can’t be bothered eating out or picking up takeaway, it’s undoubtedly a popular dinner solution.
So the Herald Sun decided to put the city’s most popular delivery services UberEATS, Foodora and Deliveroo to the test.
We ordered similar meals (burgers and chips), from the same CBD block (Collins St) at the same time (11.30am) every Friday for three weeks.
Here’s what we found:
ROAD TEST DAY ONE
Friday June 30
UBER EATS
Venue: Cafe Vue
Order: Blackmore Wagyu beef burger and chips
Location: Collins St, Melbourne.
Time ordered: 11.33am
Time arrived: 12.30pm
Quality:
The burger and chips were cold on arrival. It took a long time for the kitchen to prepare the order and deliver the meal. Kudos to UberEATS customer service who helped rectify an incorrect order promptly. When ordering we accidentally scheduled the order of the meal instead of requesting it to be delivered ASAP.
By alerting them on the app and via a phone call, the order was cancelled and we were free to create another. The burger and chips were placed in cardboard boxes and then placed in a bag.
Rating: (/10)
Directions: 9/10
Service: 10/10
Delivery time: 6/10
Meal quality: 6/10
Total: 31/40
FOODORA
Venue: Brooklyn Depot
Order: Classic burger and chips
Location: Lonsdale St, Melbourne
Time ordered: 11.29am
Time arrived: 12.16pm
Quality:
There was no option to use a free delivery code on the Foodora website, as promised in return for a charity donation made on a previous order.
The countdown timer on the app wasn’t accurate — it did not move for 11 minutes, then the delivery arrival time increased by one minute. Then magically, seven minutes were shaved off.
Meanwhile, we receive a text from Foodora apologising that the order was running late.
There must’ve been a glitch with the cyclist tracker because the little red bike was still stationed at the restaurant.
When it finally arrives the delivery guy hadn’t gotten lost in the maze at Southbank, a refreshing change.
The meal was neatly packaged in cardboard boxes but alas, the chips were stale and rubbery, the burger lukewarm. Considering it was about 10C out there, we let it slide.
Rating:
Directions: 10/10
Service: 4/10
Delivery time: 4/10
Meal quality: 4/10
Total: 22/40
DELIVEROO
Venue: Burger Project
Order: Cheeseburger and a bunless burger, small chips.
Location: Collins St, Melbourne.
Time ordered: 11.25am.
Time arrived: 1.30pm
Quality:
The ordering system malfunctioned and the Deliveroo website said the order hadn’t gone through, when in fact it had.
There was no way to provide feedback over the phone with the only option via the live chat on the Deliveroo website.
Concern was raised over the chat but there was no immediate response.
Meanwhile notifications were received to say the order was on its way.
The delivery arrival time had also changed several times.
When the Deliveroo live chat eventually responded it confirmed the order had been sent twice and both were in transit.
A refund was offered for the second unwanted order, but this wasn’t used as it seemed pointless when the order was already on its way.
Two hours later both orders were received within a couple of minutes of each other, delivered by two separate drivers. The first order was cold and the second was tepid.
The lot of chips had spilt entirely out of bucket.
Rating: (order 1)
Directions: 7/10
Service: 6/10 (they offered to refund wrong order)
Delivery time: 1/10
Meal quality: 2/10
Total: 16/40
Rating: (order 2)
Directions: 6/10
Service: 7/10
Delivery time: 1/10
Meal quality: 6/10
Total: 20/40
ROAD TEST DAY TWO
Date: Friday July 7
Order: Cheeseburger and a bunless burger, small chips.
Location: Collins St, Melbourne.
Time ordered: 11.25am.
Time arrived: 11.55am.
Quality:
Ratings:
Directions: 6/10
Service: 7/10
Delivery time: 10/10
Meal quality: 7/10
Total: 28/40
FOODORA
Venue: Brooklyn Depot
Order: Classic burger and chips
Location: Lonsdale St, Melbourne
Time ordered: 11.38am
Time arrived: 11.56am
Quality:
Foodora gives you the option to reorder a previous delivery but we can’t resist looking through all the options again. The discount code came through this time and worked, despite supposedly expiring the previous day. Score!
Once again, the order arrives late but the delivery time is improved by a fraction.
The delivery person finds HWT Tower without having to be redirected from the street address on City Rd.
The burger was much better than last time, though the chips were still soggy.
Plus points for cardboard box packaging, which absorbs condensation and can be recycled afterwards.
Rating:
Directions: 10/10
Service: 5/10
Delivery time: 7/10
Meal quality: 6/10
Total: 28/40
UBEREATS 1
Venue: Cafe Vue
Order: Blackmore Wagyu beef burger and chips
Location: Collins St, Melbourne
Time ordered: 11.29am
Time arrived: 12.06pm
Quality:
This was the first time using the app and set up was simple and fluid. The amount of food options was a little overwhelming, but once the order was placed UberEATS did a good job of providing updates on the status of the delivery.
It was quite handy being able to place an order and keep tabs on the meal in real-time and beats waiting indefinitely for an order to show up.
The delivery person had trouble finding the building, as it’s not on a main road, but was exceptionally polite when we linked up.
Rating:
Directions: 7/10
Service: 9/10
Delivery time: 9/10
Meal quality: 10/10
Total: 35/40
UBER EATS 2
Venue: Cafe Vue
Order: Prawn burger, chips and no seeds.
Location: Collins St, Melbourne
Time ordered: 11.33am
Time arrived: 12.20pm
Quality:
Points to Cafe Vue for being stringent in alerting the kitchen of a seed allergy.
No sesame seeds were included in the order, which was great.
However the delivery cyclist got lost and didn’t meet us at the doors to the building.
Food arrived in less than an hour, which is a win on a Friday.
Rating: (/10)
Directions: 8/10
Service: 9/10
Delivery time: 8/10
Meal quality: 7/10
Total: 33/40
ROAD TEST DAY 3
Date: Friday July 14
DELIVROO
Venue: Burger Project
Order: Three burgers, two small chips
Location: Collins St, Melbourne
Time ordered: 11.55am
Time arrived: 1.20pm
Quality:
Ordered at 11.55am and the arrival time was meant to be 12.25-12.35.
The delivery person went to wrong building and we had to walkout in the cold to meet him there.
When we arrived at the other building we found he’d delivered the wrong order.
The order had a different order number and was eight burgers.
The driver told us to call up and sort it out, while he delivered to the right place.
We used the live chat on the app to contact Deliveroo to complain that it wasn’t up to us to organise the drivers. They said they’d get back to us.
Several minutes later a response was received to say a replacement order would be sent.
It arrived 10 minutes after the designated time.
We had to send another query on the live chat to see where it was.
This time the order was correct and it went to the right location.
Everything arrived at 1.20pm.
Rating:
Directions: 1/10
Service: 3/10
Delivery time: 2/10
Meal quality: 6/10
Total: 12/40
VERDICT:
UberEATS came out on top, scoring high for service and overall delivery quality.
Deliveroo lost points for some unfortunate ordering malfunctions.
Foodora produced above average quality and delivery of food, but there were some quirks in using discount coupons online.
Most services struggled finding the HWT Tower, but some dealt with it better than others.
While the temperature of your order on arrival can depend on a number of factors, particularly in winter, most meals were delivered lukewarm.
The way the delivery services fixed problems was a big factor in scoring.
It’s hard when you know how the product from each store should taste, but get disappointed when the food arrives colder than expected because of a delivery glitch.
UberEATS:
TOTAL SCORE: 99/120
82.5%
Deliveroo:
TOTAL SCORE: 58/120
48%
Foodora:
TOTAL SCORE: 50/80
62.5%
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