SINGAPORE - Meal delivery service foodpanda on Wednesday (Nov 7) announced the launch of Pick-Up, a service that lets customers order their meals on the foodpanda app or website and pick up their orders from the restaurants themselves.

The start-up told The Business Times that at launch, foodpanda will be the only food delivery service in Singapore that allows users to pick up their orders from over 2,000 restaurant vendors.

These participating vendors represent more than a third of foodpanda's 6,000 restaurants here. They include A Poke Theory, Fun Toast, Guzman y Gomez, Han’s, Heavenly Wang, Kith, Krispy Kreme, Oldtown White Coffee, PastaMania, Rollie Olie, SaladStop! Share Tea, Springleaf Prata Place, Swensen’s, Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf, The Soup Spoon and Wine Connection.

Mr Luc Andreani, managing director of foodpanda Singapore, told BT: "Pick-Up is an essential offering for people in Singapore. There is a wide array of restaurants available but we often don't have time to navigate the queues, especially the Central Business District (CBD) crowd."

He cited a recent study by DBS Bank that showed that Singaporeans spend an average of 24 minutes queuing for lunch in the CBD, which come up to more than 100 hours a year.

Mr Andreani said: "Why wait? We all know time is precious and there are better ways to spend it than waiting in line under the sun or in the rain."

He added that with Pick-Up, foodpanda's restaurant partners will be able to manage food orders more efficiently and potentially increase the number of people they can serve in a day.

The average food preparation time for Pick-Up will be around 15 minutes. Users will be able to see from foodpanda's platform the distance to the restaurant, which allows for "hassle-free collection", Mr Andreani said.

Users of Pick-Up will not incur a delivery fee or be subject to a minimum order value. This presents a "convenient solution for those early morning coffee queues, lunchtime crowds or even grabbing dinner on the way home after work", added Mr Andreani.

The business model for Pick-Up will be similar to that of foodpanda's food delivery service, where foodpanda charges a commission to the restaurant for each order, only there will not be a minimum order value or delivery fee.

Aside from foodpanda, two food-delivery players in Singapore offer a service similar to Pick-Up, but executed on a smaller scale.

Deliveroo's Click & Collect service is applicable to only the seven restaurants that are based at its second centralised kitchen space, Editions CT Hub 2, while honestbee's pick-up service is limited to its some 15 food and beverage concepts in its recently opened grocery and dining concept, habitat.

It is understood that GrabFood does not offer a pick-up service.

Correction note: The article has been amended to reflect the correct names of participating vendors of foodpanda’s Pick-Up service.