SINGAPORE - Food delivery service for Foodpanda was down for several hours on Sunday (Jan 14), after it received an "unprecedented surge in orders" due to the recent rainy weather.

Many consumers who tried placing orders on the Foodpanda app in the afternoon were told that it was "experiencing system issues at the moment".

"We're sorry for the inconvenience and will be up and running again soon," the message said.

In response to The Straits Times' queries, Foodpanda managing director Luc Andreani said that the company had not predicted the 12 per cent surge in orders as a result of inclement weather over the past week.

It had derived the figure from its advanced algorithm tool, which allows it to predict the number of orders at a given time.

Mr Andreani noted that Foodpanda had a "record-breaking day of orders" on Saturday.

And on Sunday from about 12.30pm, the food delivery service was down as it did not have enough riders on the road to cope with the demand. It has a fleet of around 3,000 riders.

He said: "Foodpanda's primary concern is customer service, so if there are not enough riders to ensure this, it has to temporarily take the service down until the issue can be fixed."

He added that the service resumed at around 3.30pm.