B.C. ride hailing company to offer food delivery services

A B.C.-based ride hailing company plans to expand its services to include food delivery in the wake of a controversial move by SkipTheDishes to tack on a retaliatory new surcharge on B.C. orders.

Mandeep Rana, founder and CEO Lucky to Go, said it aims to offer food delivery through its ride-sharing app in Vancouver, Abbotsford and Chilliwack by the end of February.

Kelowna could see the service up and running within two weeks as the company already has 40 drivers in the Central Okanagan, he said.

“We always had the food delivery platform in our mind because it is one app that could serve both purposes and the clientele remains the same, so we always thought that it would be a good idea for consumers to have one app,” Rana told Global News on Sunday.

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He added the company only plans to charge restaurants 8 per cent to use its third-party platform. B.C. has temporarily capped fees food delivery couriers can charge restaurants at 15 per cent.

“It is a profitable model because we can make profits from both sides together, ride share as well as food delivery, so the overhead for the operations remains the same because it’s the same application and same amount of work that goes in the back-end,” Rana said.

Victoria-based Lucky to Go received approval to operate in B.C. in April 2020 and launched its Kelowna service in July.

Popular food delivery app SkipTheDishes quietly added a 99-cent “B.C.” fee on all orders made in the province after the government imposed the cap on service fees to help the struggling restaurant industry.

The company said the surcharge, listed alongside taxes, tips and delivery fees on the app, is there “to ensure that there is no impact to the service and support we’re able to provide all our stakeholders.”

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“I was not very impressed. It could have been done in a better, cleaner way, as in disclosure rather than a hidden fee,” Rana said.

He is urging restaurants to check out his business as an alternative to the big food delivery apps.

“We can share the bottom-line profits with using both services as a company and in return we can give a better deal to the consumers as well as to the restaurants,” he said.

More information can be found on the Lucky to Go website.

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