Just Eat digests Hungry House and SkipTheDishes
Food delivery marketplace Just Eat has deployed some of its existing cash reserves to serve itself up a two-course meal, gobbling up Delivery Hero owned Hungry House for a £200m main course and following through with Canadian rival SkipTheDishes, in a deal worth £66.1m, for dessert.
Drawn by a custom hi-tech delivery platform developed by the business to better serve lower density suburban areas, the Canadian move will bring an additional 2,900 restaurants and 350,000 active customers within Just Eat’s purview.
Just Eat will now dominate the Canadian online food delivery market, which is estimated to be worth £1.5bn per annum.
HungryHouse meanwhile is a solely UK operation which will serve to enhance the breadth of choice available to Just Eat's customers in that market.
David Buttress, CEO of Just Eat, said: "The acquisition of SkipTheDishes will materially strengthen Just Eat's number one position in Canada. Canada is a phenomenally exciting country for online food delivery, with significant runway for growth and a clear opportunity to drive channel shift.
Buttress added: “The UK has long been an engine of growth for Just Eat. While we have significantly expanded internationally in recent years, we have remained focused on building a high growth, sustainably profitable business domestically. Through this transaction, we would extend our market presence in the UK and sustain high levels of growth given the considerable opportunity in this market.”
SkipTheDishes has prospered by bringing takeaway food further afield, enjoying year-on-year growth of 186% to reach 1.6m orders for the first ten months of 2016 as suburbanites dodged their kitchens.
The competitive food delivery market has seen a wave of consolidation in recent months with Delivery Hero snapping up FoodPanda.