Households with working people in particular have increasingly resorted to food deliveries in recent years. The biggest advantage: time savings. But anyone who thinks that delivery services are an invention of the Internet age is wrong: As early as 1960, the US chain Domino's Pizza established a delivery service in the United States.
However, the supply of delivery services seems to have grown steadily in recent years – of course thanks to the increased demand. In addition to the classic delivery service with ready-made dishes, numerous online supermarkets as well as weekly cooking or monthly food boxes have established themselves as a practical alternative or addition to the stressful trip to the supermarket, usually shortly before closing time. But which providers are there – and can convince?
That says Stiftung Warentest
A while ago, Stiftung Warentest took a close look at some online supermarkets and tested them for punctuality, freshness and waste. Although no test participant was able to achieve the rating "very good", the providers mytime.de and Amazon Fresh were positively emphasized due to the meticulously kept cold chain. In the overall ranking, mytime.de also won, ahead of Bringmeister by Edeka in second place and Rewe delivery service in third place.
HelloFresh scores above average
In the cook boxes, which are also becoming increasingly popular and in which exactly the right ingredients for certain dishes are delivered free of charge, the offer from HelloFresh, for example, emerged as the most recommendable on the test page fooddeliveryindex.de. With the exception of the time window and delivery price categories, the Berlin-based company won the top marks in all other categories and thus prevailed against the competition such as Marley Spoon or Kochhaus.
With the monthly food boxes, Foodist prevailed just before the Whole Food Box, but neither of them was completely convincing in the overall rating. Above all, the lack of flexibility due to limited delivery days and a narrow delivery window let the providers drop compared to the weekly cooking boxes, but also to the online delivery services.
No comparison test possible with classic delivery services
A comparison test with classic delivery services that bring home cooked dishes such as pizza, burgers or Asian food home is currently difficult in Germany: The German subsidiary Lieferando of the Dutch parent company takeaway.com currently has a unique selling point in Germany.
The previously competing offers pizza.de, Foodora, lieferservice.de and Lieferheld have all been taken over by Lieferando. Internationally operating companies in the same field have either discontinued their service, such as Deliveroo, or have not yet been active in Germany, such as Uber Eats.
Conclusion: Those who do not want to put themselves in the supermarket line have numerous alternatives. Above all, your own eating and cooking habits are decisive for which variant you choose: the complete purchase from the retail delivery service, a preselected box with ingredients for certain dishes or a ready meal from your favorite restaurant.