Deliveroo hires new head of commercial

Heather McIlvaine

8th Aug 2019

Deliveroo has hired a new head of commercial to boost the number of restaurants using its online food platform in Australia.

Laura Huddle joins Deliveroo from Eventbrite, where she worked for more than nine years, most recently as the head of marketing in Australia and New Zealand.

In her new role, Huddle will be tasked with overseeing Deliveroo’s relationship with the more than 11,000 restaurants that currently use the online food platform, and signing on new restaurant partners.

Competition is rising in Australia’s small but growing food delivery space, with Uber Eats and Menulog also looking to grow the number of restaurants partners on their platforms.

In its half-year results released last week, Menulog, which is owned by the London-listed company Just Eat, said it has roughly 15,700 restaurants on its platform.

Unlike Deliveroo and Uber Eats, however, Menulog only provides delivery for 5700 of these. For the bulk of the restaurants on its platform, around 10,000, it simply facilitates the online ordering and payment process. The restaurants take care of delivery themselves.

Deliveroo said it has more than doubled the number of partner restaurants on its platform in the past 12 months. Huddle’s appointment signals its commitment to maintain this momentum.

“This is an incredibly exciting time to be joining Deliveroo, a company that is focused on transforming the way people think about and experience their favourite foods. Partnering with and enabling the success of Australia’s best and most-loved restaurants is key to this,” Huddle said in a statement.

“There’s no doubt that the traditional restaurant sector is changing as consumers are looking for both the convenience of on-demand food delivery and an amazing dine-in experience. I’ll be focusing on ensuring that Deliveroo can best position our partner restaurants to succeed across both.”

In the past 12 months, Deliveroo has introduced a range of new features, including Marketplace+, a feature that allows small takeaway restaurants to join Deliveroo and make use of the company’s 8,000-strong rider network; Restaurant Perks, which provides restaurants with discount access to essential business services from select partners including Tyro and Sidekicker; and Deliveroo Plus, a subscription service for customers.