An increasing number of restaurants and food joints are boycotting the online food ordering company Just Eat because of high prices.
Every time a customer places an order at a restaurant through its site, the restaurant pays 12 percent to Just Eat. Only recently that fee was 10 percent.
“In reality we actually paid about 16 percent before because there were also administrative fees and other fees,” Rami Marrogi, the owner of Mama Rosa pizzeria in Aalborg, told Metroxpress newspaper.
“And now the figure is up to 18-19 percent – so you have to give them almost one fifth of your earnings. It simply wasn’t worth it anymore for us.”
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A mounting exodus
Mama Rosa is far from the only eatery to drop Just Eat. On Tuesday, 150 restaurants met in the western Copenhagen suburb of Ishøj to discuss the matter, leading to another 20 dropping the online ordering company.
Furthermore, a Facebook page calling for the boycott of Just Eat, ‘Boykot JUST EAT’, now has close to 2,000 members.
Just Eat is concerned about the development, but defended its recent price hike.
“We can see great potential in lifting the market, which in turn demands spending more money on marketing,” said Carsten Boldt, the head of Just Eat. “We put a lot of money into it and then the pizzerias give a little bit.”
Just Eat services over 2,000 restaurants in Denmark, but it also services over 29,000 restaurants in 11 other countries including the UK, Canada, Spain, India and Brazil.
Just Eat’s biggest rival in Denmark is Hungry.dk, which has about 800 restaurants as customers.
