A new company has entered the UK’s e-commerce food delivery market. Deliverd is launching today (27 January) and after a long period of pre-launch testing will be delivering meals that have been prepared in the kitchens of participating restaurants. The meals will be delivered chilled which will mean that the courier will not be under pressure to get the goods to the customer while still hot.

The company is starting in the north of England and outside of London instead of the traditional route to market of testing its model in the capital. It will offer meals prices at £4 with no delivery charges and will offer two delivery slots – between 12:00 and 13:00 for lunch, and between 15:00 and 16:00 for dinner. It has been reported that the company will aggregate orders and plans to arrange milk-run style deliveries.

The story was reported in Tech Crunch and the founder of Deliverd Paul Rawlings said, “We often get compared to other premium delivery companies like Deliveroo but we believe that our major competitor is more the ready meal.

“We believe that, as we are positioned as a Monday to Thursday product where customers want to eat great food but can’t afford the high ticket spend of a takeout, our repeat ordering is high in comparison to others.”

Up against Hungry Horse, Just Eat and a number of in-house food delivery companies, Deliverd is entering a very competitive and crowded marketplace. Starting its business outside of London could be a good move, as that area is even more crowded than the rest of the country. By using the regions and shires as a test-bed could well be a good move and avoid the particularly tough competition in the UK’s capital. Most new businesses fold within 18 months to it remains to be seen whether Deliverd has found a nice niche.