Menulog partners with Drive Yello to allow restaurants to tap into driver network

It’s been a busy, competitive year for the Australian restaurant delivery space, with Suppertime rebranding to Foodora, Deliveroo expanding into three new cities, and UberEATS launching to take on the pair.

However, while these new services have stolen many of the headlines, older player Menulog too has continued to grow, and to expand further it has partnered with Sydney-founded restaurant delivery startup Drive Yello.

With more than 7,600 restaurants on board, Menulog has traditionally worked with the restaurant’s own delivery drivers to help them manage orders and delivery. Partnering with Drive Yello will enable those without drivers to offer delivery and tap into the startup’s last mile technology, allowing customers to track their food to their door.

Drive Yello works by having restaurants and cafes post delivery jobs on the platform, to be filled by a driver on-demand. The vendors posting jobs can search, hire, manage, track, and pay drivers through the platform for one-off deliveries or full shifts.

Steve Fanale, cofounder of Drive Yello, said, “We’re thrilled to be working with Menulog to provide what we believe will be the best online delivery experience in the country.

“For a start up delivery business, partnering with the market leader in online food ordering is huge; we believe this will transform our business and we’re excited to develop the partnership to bring people across the country more exciting food delivery innovations.”

Founded in 2014, Drive Yello built up a base around Sydney before expanding into Melbourne earlier this year. It took part in the third class of the muru-D accelerator, and in the Simplot Ignite accelerator program as a scale up.

Alistair Venn, appointed managing director of Menulog in June, said the two companies share “enormous synergy”, with each providing a different side of the value proposition for Australian businesses and consumers.

“Menulog aims to make food discovery exciting for all Australians by providing a huge range of options for people to choose from. In turn, our restaurant partners have access to millions of hungry Australians across the country. Team this with Drive Yello’s goal of facilitating seamless delivery for local restaurants and you have a winning combination,” he said.

The partnership with Drive Yello isn’t the first attempt Menulog has made at offering delivery drivers to restaurants, however.

The company had partnered with on-demand courier startup Zoom2u in February to allow restaurants in Sydney to tap into its network of couriers, but is now no longer working with the startup.

Image: Steve Fanale and Johnny Timbs. Source: Supplied.