Deliveroo Could Earn the UK Economy £1.5 Billion

Deliveroo has commissioned a report into its own success, looking to find public bolster for its impact on the UK economy — certainly desirable with the prospect of an IPO around an as-yet-undefined corner.

The study from Capital Economics, an independent macroeconomic research company, looked into Deliveroo’s value-added for its partners, using metrics for created jobs and gross value added, which translates to GDP when looking from a national perspective. Unsurprisingly, of the 5,600 jobs purportedly created by the platform, just shy of half (2,780) were created in London. The GVA for Deliveroo’s partners in 2016/17 was £460 million pounds, though the veracity of that figure is worthy of scrutiny, given that it covers supply chains as well as restaurant revenue: more interesting perhaps would be a proportional comparison of revenue from normal operations against Deliveroo operations.

Looking forward, the rate of growth tracked in the report would see Deliveroo contribute £1.5bn to the UK economy by 2018/19. It’s a rosy perspective, but given coincidence with Brexit negotiations, a surfeit of closures, and Deliveroo Editions’ subtle indication that the platform needs more than traditional restaurant models to survive, numbers are likely to slow down over the coming year. Dan Warne, UK MD, commented on Deliveroo’s pride in “boosting British restaurants”, while fewer people eat out across the country: this double bind is not going away.