Online food delivery has taken many forms in the years since the Covid-19 pandemic turned it into a mainstream concept. Consumers nowadays can order anything from pizzas to pantry staples, and often receive these items in under an hour.
Echoing this, foodora chief international officer Herbert Haas says that in 2025, the food delivery business is all about providing convenience, a seamless experience, and affordability to consumers.
Founded by Delivery Hero in 2015, foodora has expanded from the Nordic region (specifically Norway, Sweden, and Finland) to Austria, Hungary, and Czechia in recent years.
It was also one of the earlier food delivery companies to expand its business model beyond restaurant orders to include groceries. Foodora now offers a quick-commerce model made up of its own food stores as well as partnerships with major European food retailers such as BILLA and PENNY.
Some of those partnerships, such as the one with PENNY, a discount food retailer in six European countries, directly address the affordability concerns for consumers. While overall inflation has normalized in Europe, food prices are still one-third higher than before the pandemic, according to the European Central Bank. Cost for consumers varies from one food delivery service to the next, but the industry as a whole has a reputation for extra fees and surcharges that can drive up the price of a single meal.
In a recent conversation with AgFunderNews, Haas went into the details of the PENNY partnership as well as other tactics Foodora uses for addressing the affordability factor. This includes its Saver option launched this year (for restaurant orders only right now) that offers savings in return for customers waiting slightly longer for their order.
Below, Haas discusses these factors, the ups and downs of running a food delivery business in 2025, and the vital role AI plays at foodora.
AgFunderNews (AFN): What drives food delivery’s continued popularity in Europe? How does foodora incorporate these elements?
Herbert Haas (HH): There are three core factors: convenience, seamless experience with choice, and commitment to affordability/loyalty across both food delivery and quick commerce (groceries/shops).
For many people today, delivery has become a primary option (“Plan A”) when they want to enjoy an experience, whether that involves preparing a meal at home or saving time by ordering from a restaurant.
[People also want] seamless delivery with choice. While we focus on innovating every day to make our app better for our users to order what they want and get it on time, foodora also offers a vast and diverse selection, encompassing restaurant meals, groceries, and products from local shops. We partner with tens of thousands of restaurants and thousands of businesses and dozens of supermarket chains across Europe, giving users access to everything from local culinary gems to major global chains and a wide assortment of essentials.
We also constantly work to make delivery more accessible through options like our subscription, foodora PRO, and innovative features such as Saver Delivery. Our promotions keep ensuring that value remains accessible to our customers.
AFN: What are the biggest challenges the food delivery sector faces right now?
HH: The quick commerce and delivery sector is highly dynamic, and our main challenges currently revolve around managing economic pressures while keeping being one of the leaders in each market we operate.
Beyond focusing on what we do best in terms of choice, affordability and seamless experience, one of the key challenges is around how we use affordability to fight inflation. While inflation is a macro challenge, it forces customers to be more price-conscious.
We counter this by focusing on subscription, flash deals and special discount campaigns. We aim to keep our current cost increase below the inflation rate. We’ve seen new types of customers emerge that we call “optimizers”: they are actively layering every available lever of discounts to maximize their savings.
AFN: In the past you’ve talked about foodora being a “transaction by transaction” business. Could you elaborate a bit more on this ethos?
HH: The “transaction by transaction” ethos centers on treating every delivery as a complete, independent exchange of value. With each order, efficiency, reliability, and customer satisfaction must align. Each order is both a unit of revenue and a test of trust, driving a focus on flawless execution and instant gratification. This can build long-term relationships, and foodora builds loyalty through consistent performance. Earning customer trust one delivery at a time.
AFN: How does the relationship with restaurants function? Does foodora take a cut of each transaction or is there a different arrangement?
HH: The relationship with our thousands of businesses is a mutually beneficial partnership, where we act as a growth engine.
Foodora takes a commission in percentage from the total order amount. However, we are clear that the order price paid by the customer goes mainly to the restaurant/shop and the rider. The portion that foodora receives is reinvested into crucial areas like the technology platform, marketing campaigns, and our comprehensive logistics network, which would otherwise be very costly and resource-intensive for an independent restaurant to build and maintain.
Our core role is to enable growth. On average, restaurants see a significant lift in business, achieving on average 51% more orders six months after joining the platform. We also offer tools like the CPC [cost per click] advertising campaigns, which drive a significant 22% average increase in daily orders per vendor across Europe.
AFN: How did the partnership with PENNY come about? What is next for that?
HH: The partnership with PENNY is a part of providing relevant choice for our customers. It’s part of our strategy to expand our quick commerce offering in Austria and also in Europe. We have been having great relationships with them and they see foodora as a reliable partner to expand their digital footprint when it comes to delivery in Austria and beyond.
The partnership with PENNY aligns with our strategy to offer a wide choice to our customers, allowing them to order groceries quickly. This meets the growing demand from customers who tend to spend three times more when ordering from multiple categories. We empower businesses to expand their reach and tap into the potential of digital commerce by providing a platform to connect with a broader customer base.
In Austria, where PENNY’s international operations are based, we’ve rapidly expanded since May 2024 and now offer deliveries from 46 stores across almost all federal states.
In Hungary, we are on track to open the 100th PENNY store for delivery on foodora, with nearly 2,000 products available at standard PENNY prices. Most recently, we launched in Czechia in August 2025, starting with Ostrava and Olomouc, with more cities joining the service gradually.
The next step I see here is to continue to explore and evolve our partnership with PENNY, supporting them in launching in new cities in Austria and also in other countries we operate. Our goal is to empower these businesses to tap into digital commerce and expand their reach, bringing customers closer to their products.
AFN: What is the role of AI currently at foodora How do you see this growing in the near term?
HH: [It is] fundamentally human-centered and is designed to support and enhance the human elements of the business, whatever it is for driving efficiency for operations, growth for partners, and a better experience for customers.
We leverage AI across various touchpoints.
AI is used daily by our corporate workforce. Gemini is the main tool we use internally. Our teams use it to be efficient in their day-to-day tasks. [For example,] the marketing team uses AI-generated motion ads to deliver dynamic ads at scale, while our BI/analytics team created a tool called AURA. Insights that once took hours now appear in minutes through this tool.
With customer experience, AI powers personalized marketing, improving product and vendor recommendations, and driving the retention of customers through predictive analytics.
With internal operations and logistics, algorithms optimize the routes but interactions with riders are managed by people—human interactions and feedback are key for the best experiences for riders and customers alike.
In partner growth we use AI to help our thousands of partners grow. For instance, we’ve launched AI-generated imagery in some markets to help restaurants with little or no digital assets boost their visual appeal and sales.
In the near-term, we are exploring the integration of advanced technology, including drones and robots with operations already live in Sweden, and tests running in Norway and soon in Czechia. This complements our AI driven systems to create an even more seamless customer experience, including better in-app navigation and more accurate menu suggestions.
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