Move comes months after Just Eat confirmed shift in strategy to launch its own delivery fleet

This article is more than 2 years old

This article is more than 2 years old

Deliveroo is planning to expand in the UK this year by signing up 5,000 eateries who use their own delivery fleets in a direct challenge to Just Eat.

Until now, only restaurants that agreed to use Deliveroo’s network of 15,000 couriers could be listed on the fast-growing takeaway app.

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The London-based food delivery company said it expected to take on thousands more couriers as a result of the change in policy, as it would offer restaurants with their own fleets the option of using Deliveroo’s riders at busy times.

Deliveroo faces two legal challenges over the employment status of its couriers with a high court ruling on one expected this week. However, the company’s founder, Will Shu, said it would not have been able to quickly build such a large fleet of couriers if they were fully employed.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Deliveroo’s CEO, Will Shu. Could it be napkins at dawn with Just Eat? Photograph: Christophe Petit Tesson/EPA

He said that, according to the company’s own figures, 90% of the group’s riders around the world valued the flexibility, which enabled them to access Deliveroo’s system whenever they wanted to work.

“Whatever we can do to preserve that flexibility is the most important thing to me. If we can work with the government, and governments around the world, to enable benefits alongside flexibility and end this alleged trade off between these two things; that is something I would strongly welcome,” he said.

Shu said Deliveroo’s new service would enable users to choose from 50% more restaurants.

The “long-term 10-year goal”, Shu said, was to become “the definitive food company”, making the Deliveroo name synonymous with takeaway delivery in the same way Amazon has done for e-commerce or Google for web search.

Deliveroo’s step into territory dominated by Just Eat comes weeks after the FTSE 100-listed online takeaway firm said it was planning to launch its own delivery fleetin the UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

It also comes as Deliveroo struggles to meet ambitions for its “dark kitchens”, which enable restaurants to set up a delivery-only service from cheap rented kitchen “pods”.

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Shu said its Editions business remained “a huge part of bringing more selection to customers”. The company currently operates 74 dark kitchens from 14 sites in the UK, up from 66 at 11 sites in October last year – but well short of the 200-plus kitchens it had hoped to have opened by now.