There's something wrong with my order
In 2020 European company Just Eat Takeaway struck a deal which they hoped would break open the US food delivery market — offering $7.3bn to acquire Grubhub. The takeover, which was completed a year later and created the largest delivery service in the world outside of China, hasn't taken long to lose its flavor.
Fierce competitors DoorDash and Uber Eats have eaten into Grubhub's market share. In 2018 the company had more than a third of the US market, last month they had just 13%.
A prime opportunity
After a tricky start to 2022 — with orders down 1% in the first three months — Just Eat announced in April that they were exploring the option of offloading their ailing US acquisition less than a year after they bought it.
Enter Amazon. With Just Eat under pressure to jettison its US operations Amazon swooped in, announcing on Wednesday that they had secured a 2% stake in Grubhub. They also announced that Prime members would get access to Grubhub+, which scraps delivery fees on orders over $12. Depending on how many new customers that initiative drives — and some other performance variables — Amazon has the option to increase its total stake in Grubhub to 15%.
