Ordering in? Here’s what to skip

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This article was published 01/05/2021 (1974 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

PERHAPS a special occasion in our household deserves a special meal. Someone offers a three-word dinner suggestion: “Let’s order in.”

While it may be because no one in the house wants to cook, the suggestion can be bolstered if necessary by an appeal to the greater good: we’re commendably community-minded when we support Manitoba’s eateries that have been hard hit by pandemic restrictions.

The next decision is which app to use for delivery: SkipTheDishes, DoorDash or Uber Eats?

The correct answer is none of them, according to Manitoba’s independent restaurants. Don’t use any of the apps. They’re the faces of food-delivery companies that charge restaurants sky-high commissions, up to 30 per cent, even though restaurants typically operate on a razor-thin profit margin of five to 10 per cent.

Something’s rotten in the Manitoba food industry when struggling restaurants are forced to pay such high commissions to third-party companies that deliver their food. They don’t buy the food, or cook the food, or package the meals; they only transport the meal to our front steps. Restaurants fight to survive, while the delivery companies have seen a boom in business thanks to pandemic restrictions that keep restaurant patrons at home.

That could change if the Manitoba Restaurant and Foodservices Association gets its way. The organization’s CEO, Shaun Jeffrey, said it has lobbied the provincial government to clamp down on excessive fees by delivery companies.

“There is no cap present in Manitoba, although we have asked the provincial government to work with us to institute one,” he told me in an email. “We still rely heavily on delivery and the commission fees are very hurtful to operators who are struggling to keep their doors open.

The plight of restaurants hasn’t gone unnoticed by government. The Manitoba government gave $5 million to the Manitoba Chambers of Commerce to design a rebate plan for restaurant delivery costs. And many big U.S. cities and several Canadian provinces have capped third-party delivery fees, most of them temporarily until the pandemic ends and restaurants can resume indoor dining.

In some cases, the food-delivery companies themselves have found it in their best interest to help sustain the restaurant industry. After all, the relationship is mutually beneficial. When restaurants close, there are fewer calls for food delivery.

Kevin Edwards, CEO of SkipTheDishes, put it this way in an opinion column he wrote last year for the Free Press: “SkipTheDishes is only successful if our restaurant partners are successful. We have no vested interest in seeing them struggle or fail.”

His company, which is headquartered in Winnipeg, announced a pandemic package of supports and rebates to restaurants worth $15 million.

Someone who has thought deeply about this situation is Corey Mintz, the Winnipeg-based food industry critic who recently published the book The Next Supper: The End of Restaurants As We Knew Them, and What Comes After.

He writes how the delivery companies are the “dirty little secret” of the hospitality industry, in terms of both how they treat restaurants and how they treat their drivers, the front-line employees who arrive on our doorsteps carrying insulated bags filled with warm meals.

The companies call their drivers “independent contractors,” which Mintz says is a way to skirt labour laws and avoid paying their workers minimum wage, overtime, holiday pay and additional insurance for the workers’ private vehicles that are used to deliver food.

He’s writes about union-led legal battles in the U.S. that have tried to win stronger rights for so-called gig workers, and he predicts Canada will see more legal challenges to improve the working conditions of such workers here. But until then, what’s a hungry family to do when a special occasion warrants a special restaurant meal, but no one in the household feels inclined to go pick it up from the restaurant?

One way to bypass the food-delivery companies is offered by Let’s Order Delivery, an online directory of local restaurants that offer in-house delivery services. You order from a restaurant, they bring you the meal, they keep 100 per cent of your money. And your decision to deal directly with the restaurant increases the chances it will be in business for many meals to come.

carl.degurse@freepress.mb.ca

Carl DeGurse is a member of the Free Press editorial board.