Schumpeter

The foodoo economics of meal delivery

送餐的食物經(jīng)濟學

Despite consolidation, it is anything but a tasty business

盡管進行了整合，但它絕不是一項美味的業(yè)務

Aug 3rd 2019

EVEN THOSE who recoil at eating supper out of a soggy box, fear being mowed down by curry-bearing cyclists or think the death of home cooking is a cultural abomination should admire Jitse Groen. The 41-year-old Dutchman, who cooked up the online food-delivery business by founding Takeaway.com in his university bedroom in 2000, is not your usual tech billionaire. He keeps a low profile, views venture capital with distaste, earns a relatively unflashy six-figure salary and sometimes hops on the firm’s delivery bikes to help out. His main extravagance is a sharp Italian suit. So why did he, on July 29th, propose shelling out ￡8.2bn ($10.1bn) on shares for Just Eat, a large but struggling meals-on-wheels firm based in Britain?

即便是那些不敢吃濕透了的飯盒盛著的晚飯的人、亦或擔心自己的咖喱被騎著自行車的外賣員弄翻的人，還是那些認為家庭烹飪的“消亡”是被以文化層面所憎惡憎惡的人，都應該欽佩吉特斯?格倫(Jitse Groen)。這位41歲的荷蘭人，經(jīng)營者一家自他2000年那時，在大學寢室里創(chuàng)辦的“打包吧”（Takeaway.com）這家外賣企業(yè)，但卻不是諸位眼中普通的科技億萬富翁哪邊模樣。他保持低調(diào)，厭惡風險投資，工資相對不高，只有六位數(shù)，有時還會蹬上公司的送貨自行車幫忙。他的主要奢侈品是一套筆挺的意大利西裝。那么，為什么他在7月29日提議出資82億英鎊(合101億美元)購買“Just Eat”（吃吧）的股票呢? Just Eat是一家總部位于英國的大型但經(jīng)營不善的上門送餐公司。

詞匯

Recoil/畏縮；彈回；報應

Soggy/浸水的；透濕的

mow down/撂倒

curry/咖喱

abomination/ ?厭惡；憎恨；令人厭惡的事物

meals-on-wheels/上門送餐服務

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The answer says a lot about the voodoo economics of the food-delivery industry. It is a hotly competitive business, attracting the world’s biggest moneybags such as Amazon, Alibaba and SoftBank. Balancing the needs of diners, cooks and couriers is fiendishly complicated. Most startups lose platefuls of money. Yet they have received more than $30bn from spellbound venture capitalists in the past five years. And they are likely to get more.

格倫的做法在很大程度上說明了食品外賣行業(yè)的巫毒經(jīng)濟學。這是一項競爭激烈的業(yè)務，吸引了亞馬遜(Amazon)、阿里巴巴(Alibaba)和軟銀(SoftBank)等全球最大的財袋。平衡食客、廚師和外賣員的需求極其復雜。大多數(shù)創(chuàng)業(yè)公司都會損失很多錢。然而，在過去5年里，他們已經(jīng)從執(zhí)迷的風險投資家那里獲得了300多億美元。而且他們有望得到更多。

詞匯

Voodoo/巫毒的

Hotly/激動地；激烈地

Fiendishly/極壞地；不平凡；不簡單

Spellbound/出神的；被迷住的；茫然不知所之的

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Mr Groen is a reluctant apostle of black magic. He once said of his efforts to expand beyond the Netherlands, “It’s horrible. We’ve spent 100 times more money in Germany than I thought I’d ever be able to spend.” Takeaway’s deal with Just Eat highlights the conviction that consolidation is the only way to make the sums add up.

格倫先生是一個不情愿的黑魔法傳道者。他曾在談到自己在荷蘭之外擴張的努力時說，“這太可怕了。我們在德國花的錢比我想象的要多100倍。外賣與Just Eat的交易突顯出這樣一種信念，即整合是實現(xiàn)盈利的唯一途徑。

詞匯

Apostle/ ?信徒，使徒；最初的傳道者

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The food-delivery business can be split into two camps: mostly profitable veterans and loss-making newcomers. The veterans, founded at the start of the century, are led by publicly traded Grubhub in America, and Just Eat and Takeaway in Europe. The trio are collectively worth $18bn or so. They account for the largest share of the market, offering customers online access to restaurants that already have their own delivery services, such as pizza joints, sushi bars and Chinese restaurants. Their relatively simple business model, in which they take a cut of the bill from the restaurants, has enabled Grubhub and Just Eat to turn a profit for years. Takeaway makes money in its home market of the Netherlands.

送餐業(yè)務可以分為兩個陣營:主要是收獲滿滿的老手和虧損連連的新人。老手們組織成立于本世紀初，由美國上市公司Grubhub，坐落于歐洲的Just Eat 以及 Takeaway這三巨頭引領。這三家公司的總市值約為180億美元。它們占據(jù)了最大的市場份額，為顧客提供了在線進入他們已經(jīng)擁有了外賣服務的餐廳服務，比如比薩店、壽司店和中餐館。他們相對簡單的商業(yè)模式，即從餐館中收取一定的費用，使得Grubhub和Just Eat多年來一直盈利。Takeaway在荷蘭本土市場賺錢。

詞匯

Veteran/老兵；老手；富有經(jīng)驗的人

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The newbies, born more recently, have turned a once-tidy business into a food fight. They include listed firms such as Meituan of China and Delivery Hero of Germany, Uber Eats (part of Uber), Ele.me (owned by China’s Alibaba), and privately held DoorDash, based in San Francisco, and Deliveroo, from London. For most of them, delivery is their core business, so they share their cut of the bill with riders as well as restaurants. This substantially broadens the market to restaurants offering everything from steak to Hawaiian poké bowls. But margins suffer. Funded largely by venture capital, they have thrown subsidies at customers, forcing their veteran rivals onto the defensive. To catch up, the veterans are investing in advertising and delivery networks—at a big cost. This week Grubhub and Just Eat reported slumping earnings, and Takeaway mounting losses, as they spent heavily to fend off the upstarts.

然而這些雨后春筍般的新企業(yè)，他們把原本井然有序的生意變成了一場食物大戰(zhàn)。這些公司包括中國的美團(Meituan)和德國的外賣英雄(Delivery Hero)、Uber Eats (Uber的一部分)、餓了么(由中國阿里巴巴(Alibaba)所有)、總部位于舊金山的私人控股公司DoorDash和總部位于倫敦的Deliveroo。對他們中的大多數(shù)來說，送貨是他們的核心業(yè)務，所以他們與乘客和餐館分享賬單。這大大拓寬了市場，餐廳提供囊括牛排到夏威夷 poké bowls（食品名）的一切。但是利潤受到影響。他們的資金主要來自風險資本，外賣平臺向客戶提供補貼，迫使老牌競爭對手采取守勢。為了迎頭趕上，老手們在廣告和配送網(wǎng)絡上投入了巨資。本周，Grubhub和Just Eat公布收益下滑，外賣業(yè)務虧損不斷增加，因為他們投入巨資抵御新興企業(yè)。

詞匯

substantially/實質(zhì)上；大體上；充分地

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The only mouthwatering aspect of the delivery business is its potential size. According to Bernstein, a brokerage, almost a third of the global restaurant industry is made up of home delivery, takeaway and drive-throughs, which could be worth $1trn by 2023. In 2018 delivery amounted to $161bn, leaving plenty of room for online firms to expand; the seven largest increased revenues by an average of 58%. Their businesses support the trend of 20- and 30-somethings to live alone or in shared accommodation, with less time and inclination to cook. In China, by far the biggest market for food delivery, one-third of people told a survey that they would be prepared to rent a flat without a kitchen because of the convenience of delivery. Delivery also fits neatly with the gig-economy zeitgeist, alongside ride-hailing firms such as Uber, Lyft and China’s Didi.

外賣業(yè)務唯一令人垂涎的方面是其潛在的規(guī)模。據(jù)經(jīng)紀公司伯恩斯坦(Bernstein)稱，全球餐飲業(yè)近三分之一由送貨上門、外賣和免下車服務組成，到2023年，這些服務的價值可能達到1萬億美元。2018年，外賣總額達到1610億美元，為在線公司留下了大量擴張空間;最大的7家公司的收入平均增長58%。他們的企業(yè)支撐著20多歲和30多歲的年輕人獨居或合住的趨勢，他們沒有那么多時間和意愿做飯。在中國這個迄今為止最大的外賣市場，三分之一的人在接受調(diào)查時表示，由于外賣方便，他們愿意租一套沒有廚房的公寓。與Uber、Lyft和中國滴滴(Didi)等叫車公司一樣，外賣也完全符合零工經(jīng)濟的時代精神。

詞匯

drive-through/?為顧客提供免下車服務的場所（或設施）

Inclination/ ?傾向，愛好

Zeitgeist/時代思潮，時代精神

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Yet as with ride-hailing,, it is by no means clear if anyone can make money by delivering meals. In fact, the economics may be even worse. Co-ordination is more complicated. Meal-delivery firms must handle dishes that take different amounts of time to cook, while restaurants cope with orders from in-house customers. Most important, bookings must be split three ways: between delivery firms, restaurants and riders, rather than just between the ride-hailing firms and their drivers. The restaurants in particular are restive, not least because food is already a low-margin business. The most popular brands like McDonald’s and Starbucks wield the power to squeeze the delivery startups in exchange for access to millions of customers. Uber admits that Uber Eats may be forced to lower service fees for big restaurant chains.

然而，與叫車服務一樣，目前還不清楚是否有人能通過送餐賺錢。事實上，經(jīng)濟狀況可能更糟。協(xié)調(diào)則更為復雜。外賣公司必須處理不同烹飪時間的菜肴，而餐廳則要處理來自內(nèi)部顧客的訂單。最重要的是，預訂必須分成三部分:外賣公司、餐廳和騎手之間的預訂，而不僅僅是叫車公司和司機之間的預訂。餐館尤其不安，尤其是因為食品已經(jīng)是一個低利潤率的行業(yè)。麥當勞(McDonald 's)和星巴克(Starbucks)等最受歡迎的品牌利用實力排擠外賣初創(chuàng)企業(yè)，以換取數(shù)以百萬計的客戶。Uber承認，Uber Eats可能會被迫降低大型連鎖餐廳的服務費。

詞匯

Restive/難駕馭的；焦躁不安的，不耐煩的

not least/尤其；相當重要地

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Moreover, potential growth may be overstated. Subsidies make true demand hard to gauge. When delivery charges and service fees eventually rise, which they will have to if profits are to materialise, some customers may flee. In the meantime, cheap money lets firms undercut rivals but distorts incentives. The war of attrition could get even worse if giants like Amazon muscle in, as it has tried to do by buying a stake in Deliveroo (the deal is stalled at present because of antitrust concerns). Alibaba, Amazon’s Chinese counterpart, uses Ele.me as a loss leader helping drive traffic to its profitable e-commerce sites.

此外，潛在的增長可能被夸大了。補貼使得真實需求難以衡量。當外賣費和服務費最終上漲時，一些客戶可能會流失。如果要實現(xiàn)利潤，外賣費和服務費將不得不上漲。與此同時，廉價的資金讓企業(yè)以低于競爭對手的價格收購，卻扭曲了激勵機制。如果像亞馬遜這樣的巨頭介入，這場消耗戰(zhàn)可能會變得更糟，因為亞馬遜試圖通過購買Deliveroo的股份來做到這一點(由于反壟斷的擔憂，該交易目前處于停滯狀態(tài))。亞馬遜(Amazon)的中國競爭對手阿里巴巴(Alibaba)使用餓了么作為一個虧損的領導者，幫助推動其盈利的電子商務網(wǎng)站的流量。

詞匯

antitrust /[經(jīng)] 反壟斷的

Just Eat or be eaten

吞并它！還是坐以待斃？！

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Delivery businesses have ways to cut their losses. One is to diversify further, by delivering groceries, flowers, booze, and even people (as Uber does), as well as meals. Another is to provide cheaper meals by centrally supplying ingredients to restaurants, or building “ghost kitchens” that prepare food only for delivery. In “winner takes most” markets, the best way to drive up volumes and share of the proceeds is through consolidation across countries and cities. Mr Groen’s attempt to gobble up Just Eat marks the biggest foray so far. In the unappetising dog-eat-dog world of food delivery, it will still be a hard deal to digest.

外賣公司有辦法減少損失。一個是進一步多樣化，送雜貨、鮮花、酒，甚至送人(就像優(yōu)步那樣)，還有送餐。另一種方法是通過向餐館集中供應食材，或者建造“幽靈廚房”，只為外賣準備食物，從而提供更便宜的飯菜。在“贏者通吃”(winner takes most)市場中，提高銷量、提高收益份額的最佳方式，是通過國家和城市間的整合。格倫試圖狼吞虎咽地吃掉“Just Eat”，這是迄今為止規(guī)模最大的一次嘗試。在這個令人生厭的狗咬狗的送餐世界里，這仍然是一件很難消化的事情。

詞匯

Ingredient/原料；要素；食材

Unappetizing/倒胃口的

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