Restaurant delivery service Deliveroo opens in Limerick

Restaurant delivery service Deliveroo, which has said it is experiencing 25 per cent month-on-month growth in Ireland, is expanding its service to Limerick.

The move will lead to the creation of 30 jobs and follows Deliveroo’s earlier launches in Dublin, Cork, Galway and Belfast.

It was was founded in 2013, and opened its Irish office a year ago. The general manager for Ireland, Oliver Dewhurst, said the Limerick move had come ahead of schedule due to "sustained growth and a serious appetite for our service". "Ireland has far exceeded our expectations - the pace at which our service was adopted and has expanded in just 12 months has been an incredibly positive experience," he said.

Late last year, Deliveroo raised more than $100 million from investors which include Irish entrepreneur Dylan Collins’ Hoxton Ventures, to fund further expansion.

The group currently operates in 61 cities. In Ireland, Deliveroo has signed up 200 restaurants and has created 400 jobs across the cities it operates in.

“Dublin was the first international market we launched in and we’re extremely pleased with how business has gone so far both there and across the country. We see plenty of further growth opportunities in Ireland. Even in Dublin we are still only scratching the service,” said Mr Dewhurst.

Unlike takeaway platforms such as Just Eat that require restaurants to have their own delivery service, Deliveroo provides drivers to ensure ordered food gets to where it is meant to go quickly.

The group typically limits the delivery area to within 2.5km of the restaurant, to ensure that food arrives to customers fresh and as it was intended by chefs.

Mr Dewhurst also revealed details of Deliveroo’s new initiative called “RooBox,” which he said could prove to be very popular in Ireland.

RooBox, which is initially launching in London, will provide partner restaurants with fully-equipped off-site kitchens in areas that have large residential populations but not enough restaurant space to ensure prompt delivery of food.

“Obviously we’re a hyper local business but we also want to serve those who don’t live near top class restaurants. Our answer to that is to put great restaurant brands into places where people might not usually be able to access them,” he said.

“I think that because a lot of restaurants in Ireland tend to be heavily concentrated in particular areas, RooBox could prove to be a big opportunity for them to extend their business further.”