Picture this: It is your birthday. You are supposed to treat your office mates for lunch. The problem is, you were not able to plan it the day before. You do not even know how to start.
Where will you order? How much? You do not have time. What is the restaurant’s number? How can you call them if you are already swamped with desk work?
The Need for an Online Food Delivery Service
That’s where online delivery services come into play. Thankfully, we already know that it exists in the Philippines. This is thanks to established brands such as Pizza Hut and McDonalds advertising about it on the national television.
However, a new form of online food delivery service is taking shape in the Philippines, and many of us might be familiar with it already: foodpanda.
For those who are unfamiliar with it, foodpanda is an online food delivery service. The venture recently launched in the Philippines and claims to already have more than 500 restaurants in its online portal.
Read More: foodpanda brings online food delivery to Johor, fifth city in Malaysia
Enter foodpanda
How does it work? You enter foodpanda’s website, type in your city and your street address.
foodpanda will then list down all restaurants near your location.
As you can see from the above, tons of filters are available on the right panel. You can choose to show only those that have online payments available or those that have deals. (With the filter, you can even find those that deliver alcohol to your office!)
From this point forward, you just have to pick a restaurant, make your order, then wait for the food to be delivered in your doorsteps:
Foodpanda has a team who processes the online orders to the partner restaurants, which in turn will deliver it to the customers.
When we tested the website, it was unfortunately not available despite its official launch in the Philippines.
Delivering Food, One Country at a Time
Ever since launching its service in Singapore back in March 2012, foodpanda is now in more than 40 countries worldwide. It also has an iPhone and Android app.
In the Philippines, the venture will deliver food initially within Metro Manila. According to Jasper Heyden, its director of operations, they plan to expand to other cities in the Philippines when the demand arises.
Most of the time, Filipinos order food through the telephone. However, as landlines become less common, it is sometimes not natural to order food through the phone anymore – especially if the fast food does not have a mobile number. That is where foodpanda and competitors like City Delivery can thrive.
Filipinos and Food
Most established restaurants in the country are already delivering food ordered online. There is even a healthy number of online restaurant listings operating in the country.
However, while these online restaurant listings only gives you the restaurant’s name, menu, and number to call, you would still have to visit the restaurants physically to place the order, and you are unable to place the order online.
Because of that, foodpanda and its direct competitors are in a different niche and exist for the sole purpose of making people order food online efficiently.
As to when the service plans to expands to other cities in the Philippines, only time can tell. They better do it fast though. After all, Filipinos love food. Yes. Even at night – so as a tip – Foodpanda might want to be open even in the wee hours of the evening.
Read More: The Ultimate Guide to restaurant discovery sites in Singapore