The NPD Group, one of the world’s leading market research companies, is now studying the delivery of food in France. The sector is performing better than ever, recording a 20% growth in commercial catering (figures to September 2018), thanks in large part to fast food restaurants.

As a true social phenomenon, the delivery currently totals 160 million visits in commercial catering (excluding canteens), or 3% of total market visits.

Although it concentrates only 17% of orders, breakfast records an increase of over 15% in one year — a leap forward that allows the breakfast delivered to establish itself as a new growth driver in bakeries/sandwich shops.

However, the highlight of meal delivery is undeniably dinner, which alone accounts for half of the orders, and is progressing with the same dynamism as breakfast in one year.

“While the global business of commercial catering is focused around lunch, home delivery is proving to be high-performing at dinner time,” says Maria Bertoch, foodservice industry expert, The NPD Group. “A boon for restaurateurs: not only are the offers and menus less common in the evening, but consumers will be more likely to have fun once the day is behind them.”

Another reason that explains the boom of the delivery in out-of-home catering is the deployment of the service in the Hexagon. Until now, confined to the Ile de France and the major cities, the operators Deliveroo, Uber Eats, or Just Eat are gaining ground in the province, armed with promotional codes and a massive presence on social networks.

The result: orders delivered via the Internet (via the restaurant site, an aggregator or a mobile application) jumped 66% in one year and now account for 50% of the delivery market.

Orders from a mobile application alone are up 38% thanks to an attractive marketing discourse that is especially appealing to millennials. The stakes are high since 18 to 35-year-olds represent today 50% of the followers of the delivery.

On the podium of the most consumed products, pizza retains its first position but still suffers from the expansion of the supply of products that are delivered. It is followed by the sandwich, which is in slight decline. In third place, the burger is in a state of grace, doubling the volume of its sales in five years, driven in particular by the partnerships set up between certain aggregators and heavyweight players in the segment.

“It has been some time since we have seen the delivery circuit as a growing industry segment,” Bertoch says. “The service continues to mature; we now know that the main reasons why consumers do not use the delivery to buy a meal (excluding pizza) are the price or availability in their area. But these brakes will be lifted over time as this trend will continue to evolve.”