Delivering Food & Profit: What Happened with Deliveroo, and Why Is the Landscape Changing?

Deliveroo’s exit from Hong Kong—more of a customer and vendor transfer than a full shutdown—signals a shift in the food delivery space. The brand has essentially raised the white flag, as it has in Taiwan, Spain, Australia, and other markets.

How many dedicated food delivery services were operating in Hong Kong? Excluding restaurants managing their delivery, only a handful are officially registered with the Food and Environmental Hygiene Department (FEHD). (https://lnkd.in/g5chzM6B)

Black Sheep GO bikes vanished in late 2024, absorbed into a Deliveroo deal. But with Deliveroo’s retreat, will that arrangement hold?

Is compliance too difficult, or is this simply about business model challenges and cutthroat competition, as Deliveroo claims?

I reviewed the Hong Kong FEHD guidelines—just an 8-page voluntary framework from November 2022.
(https://lnkd.in/gwvUAXfu)

Seems reasonable for any serious operator. Yet, only four companies were listed as compliant:

– Deliveroo
– Foodpanda
– KeeTa
– HKHomeMeal

Now, with Deliveroo gone, we’re down to three. Delivery Hero (Foodpanda’s parent company) is absorbing their market share. Meanwhile, 961 individual food premises follow the guidelines, many likely running their own direct-to-customer operations.

So, what’s next? Will Foodpanda, KeeTa, and HKHomeMeal battle it out, or will we see more exits? Uber Eats left after five years, but Foodpanda is holding strong. KeeTa, backed by Meituan, reportedly overtook Deliveroo in just a year!

At the same time, independent operators now have access to affordable third-party tech to build their own delivery networks. With Hong Kong’s density, a few runners can cover thousands of households within a few hundred meters of a central kitchen—why share the profit?

A more practical fee structure might make the market more sustainable—these platforms are ultimately just tech solutions with variable staffing costs.

But let’s be clear: this isn’t just a Hong Kong phenomenon. Deliveroo’s retreat here is part of a broader strategy—it accounted for only 5% of their global gross transaction value.

Amazing to see how far food delivery has come—I remember when one of my clients was involved with Food By Phone. Ahead of their time!

If you need specific input regarding a strategic Hong Kong challenge or related legal matters in the HKSAR, you can always DM me and check out my profile at https://www.ajhalkes.com.

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