Food delivery is not new. The new thing are the web interfaces. Now people don't need to visit shops to learn about new things. People can shop delivered goods all the time. This allows to drive down delivery costs with scale.
Additionally, online shops streamline the ordering process. No person is needed to note down orders.
Additionally, self-driving cars and robots will eliminate the cost of the last mile. Like Uber, whoever owns the market when the robots will go life will rake in huge profits.
As for food delivery robots, I mean, sure, but building a business that only succeeds if other people deliver world-changing technology at scale before you run out of capital seems a wee bit on the risky side.
Right, that's my thinking (and anyone is free to steal this idea with my encouragement): there should be a way for someone to commit to some dish, started at some time, and then others can "hook" onto the order for a discount. Then you get economies of scale: it costs a lot less than O(n) to batch it up to n orders.
That's a surplus that can be shared between the tech platform, the restaurant, and the end user.
Similar logic for delivering that same food to people who are close to each other.
Earlier post on the model:
This is how Uber Eats already works in Toronto.
There is a section in the app with restaurants that have orders already in progress and with a timer on each one and if you order within that limited time, the delivery fee is $0.
For large parts over here in Germany I don't see route sharing in food delivery as well. Some delivery drivers I can observe via GPS (could be faked, but looks plausible) and many are delivering via bike (Pedelec etc.) or scooter and have limited space to transport also when observing restaurants they often pass a single order ober as well.
This of course can be different in areas with other order frequency and other amount of restaurants offering delivery and other distances. (Don't think many orders go further than 2km here)
Time is generally cheap outside of cities, and capital less so, so I think most big SDC companies are targeting cities.
Not only that, but honestly, most taxi companies, at least in my area, will go pick up food, liquor or other things and make deliveries. There's also a couple local delivery services that specialize in just that.
They've been doing well here during the lockdown, especially with liquor deliveries, or so i've heard. Things like uber and just eat aren't really that popular or used here though. Just the few chain restaurants use them.