What I learned as a Food Delivery Courier in Berlin and What You Should Probably Know As Wel — part 2
Onboarding, or — who do I work for (Work at? Work with? Working on?)
My previous post (and the first in this series) was about me, and how I found myself doing food deliveries in Berlin, but it said nothing about food deliveries. Yes, I have a tendency to start talking about one thing and ending up talking mainly about myself.
This post will talk about “The business” — what are we talking about when we talk about “food deliveries”, which companies run the show, and what are the main differences between them.
Up until a year ago, there were three big companies for food deliveries in Berlin: Lieferando, Foodora, and Deliveroo. I know that because I saw their ads and posters everywhere when this started being a thing in Berlin, 2 years ago (when did you come across a food delivery service that brings you food from everywhere to your house? This is really a new thing).
A year ago (April 2019) Lieferando bought Foodora, taking them out of competition and making Lieferando the biggest player in town, putting some serious pressure on the remaining Deliveroo. It didn’t take long until Deliveroo waved the flag and in August 2019 announced it is leaving the German market. So, now there is one big food delivery service in Berlin — Lieferando.
I don’t work for Lieferando, but I will talk about them quite a lot, because, as mentioned, they are the biggest (and only) player, with some tiny local delivery service fighting for the crumbs that fall off their table. I wouldn’t even call it a competition; In Berlin, food deliveries and Lieferando are synonyms.
The reason why I don’t work for/at/with Lieferando is simple — they didn’t hire me. Being the only name I knew, I contacted them when looking for a new job but got a negative reply. I was never explained why, but I have a feeling it’s due to the huge rise in the number of unemployed people, like me, looking for an immediate job at Lieferando. I was just two-three weeks late and their ranks were full.
This is how I accidentally heard about another delivery operation — a tiny collective of Berlin couriers. A collective can mean really many things, but just to give you an idea — a group of 20 people (now we are almost 40), who work together (in shifts), without hierarchies, delivering food via an open-source app and share the revenues.
The founding members of this collective are coming from the deep courier subculture. It’s a thing — they live to ride, they dress up in a certain way, have their own inner language and gestures, they are kind of anarchist/Marxist/syndicalist and they are generally very nice people. They are the cool kids of food deliveries. Why did they hire me? No, it’s not because I have a small Lenin-head statue in my kitchen that I sometimes pet — it’s because they were expanding, I sent an email, and that was that — I got the job.
Let’s go back to Lieferando, and before we move on, I want to play a tiny game with you. I want you to take 15 seconds, and try to describe — in one sentence — what these companies that I just described do.
An easier way — imagine someone asking you: “Hey… Did you see those posters of that new company…? ‘Lieferando’?? What is it about?”
One sentence answer.
Don’t google it.
I’m waiting.
Take your time.
*
*
*
*
If your answer is somewhere on the lines of “it’s a delivery company” or “it’s a Food delivery service”, you’re in good company — that’s what we all think.
But you’re a bit wrong.
Lieferando, and Foodora, and Takeaway, and Wolt, and Grubhub, are first and foremost high-tech companies. They work with restaurants, they work with couriers, but what they really do is revolutionizing the food industry based on an app they develop. These are top-notch startups applying the most advanced digital instruments, writing complicated algorithms, and harvesting enormous amounts of data about food trends, marketing strategies, and a very good user interface that can be applied to make profits.
Does this description still sound strange? Don’t trust me — go to Lieferando’s website, and try to look for a job. That’s what I did when I wanted to start doing bike deliveries. What I found, was this:
IT Security specialist; a financial analyst; something in German; and a data engineer. There are 37 more open positions (in Berlin alone). Did anyone of you find the job description for bike couriers, or where to apply for this job?
I found it, eventually, but it’s hard to find because it is not under “jobs in berlin”; there is another tab that directs you to a different website dedicated to “drivers”. This was the first time I realized, first hand, that what I thought food deliveries companies are is actually quite different. This was the start of this weird and interesting journey. And of course, it made me think — “hey Ben, why to become a bike courier when you can become a DATA ENGINEER!
Long story short — I’m not a data engineer.
To think that Lieferando is a food delivery service is like thinking that H&M is a store that sells clothes; H&M makes its profits differently — they decide which clothes you will want according to your lifestyle, favorite music, tv shows you see etc., they design them, produce them (via subcontract affiliates, mainly in South-East Asia), they make ads, brochures, and sophisticated targeted marketing, they ship the products internationally, they design commercial arenas that promote their products and then eventually, there is a non-expensive piece of garment in the store that everyone likes. Me too. I love H&M.
I know, I know: Lieferando is not H&M. and while the garment industry is a trillion dollars global operation, food deliveries are (still) not. They (still) don’t tell farmers which grains to produce to match the desired fluffiness of the pastry they deliver. But that’s an analysis worth having before moving forward.
What we know so far:
- There is currently one big food delivery service in Berlin, “Lieferando”. Lieferando is an international high-tech company (owned by a Dutch company called takeaway) that is revolutionizing the food industry.
- Their product is an app. A good app. A smart app. An app that knows what you want to eat, when, and where. An app that makes you wanna eat sweet-potato fries with black truffle mayonnaise sauce at 8 am (true story).
- I don’t work for them because they didn’t hire me. Not as a courier and not as a data engineer.
- There is a small courier collective in Berlin. They are cool and rebel, they don’t believe in hierarchies or bosses, they are transparent and friendly, and they took me in — but without really knowing me. I exchanged some emails with the main figure there, had a one-hour onboarding session, I downloaded the app, and there I was — a food delivery guy in Berlin.
In my next post, I’ll tell you how Lieferando took Deliveroo out of business, and what was different in their business model when it comes to using their courier work-force. This is where things start to get really interesting; in the meantime, you can contemplate the following question — when I order food via an app, who pays for the work of the man/woman who brought it to my doorstep?
Originally I wanted to get to that today, but I have a bike shift starting soon! If you are reading this in real-time and in Berlin, I recommend ordering food from “Goldies” at Oranienstrasse — they have a friendly staff, good deep-fried food, and the chances are high that I will be the person delivering it to your home (but only if you live in Kreuzberg! If you order this all the way up to Prenzlauerberg, you are killing me!)
(Goldies did not pay me for this free advertisement. Goldies owner — I’m open for negotiations).
— — — — — — — — — — — — -
This post is part of a series titled ‘What I learned as a Food Delivery Courier in Berlin and What You Should Probably Know As Well’.
you can read the preface here, or move on to part 3 (Living the App-Economy Dream) here.
