Say goodbye to cafeteria burgers forever.
Hungry? Amazon is now testing a food delivery service for workplaces, dubbed “Daily Dish,” eliminating the need for participating employees to hop in their cars and drive out for some grub every day.
According to Geekwire, there are a few companies involved in the initial test, all of which are Seattle-based. Employees receive daily menus sent by text message in the morning, and they have until 11 a.m. to place orders via their Prime Now apps for whatever lunches they want. They then have to hang out for a bit until lunch arrives between noon ans 12:30 p.m.
“Daily Dish offers Prime members a convenient and affordable lunch option featuring freshly-prepared lunches delivered from local restaurants every weekday. The service offers four choices every day— one meat and one vegetarian option from two different restaurants—giving customers choice in cuisine and meal type,” Amazon told Geekwire.
As you might expect, there are plenty of other food delivery services that compete against Amazon’s Daily Dish. The start-up Peach is a direct competitor, given that it and Amazon source their lunches from many of the same restaurants. They also have the same kind of setup: text-based menus, ordering until 11 a.m., and food magically appearing at lunchtime. Though Peach has a slight advantage in that it also operates in Boston and San Diego (and has been around since 2014), some members of the company don’t appear very thrilled that Amazon is encroaching on their Seattle turf.
“When the 6th largest company in America directly rips off your 40 person startup’s product… ?#imitationnotalwaysflattery,” wrote Vijay Boyapati, a senior engineer at Peach, on Facebook.
We don’t know Amazon’s expansion plans for Daily Dish, but it seems reasonable that the company would be looking to roll out the service to cities where it already offers its Amazon Restaurants food-delivery service. And yes, you need to be an Amazon Prime member to partake in the program, even if your workplace is one of the eligible companies on Amazon’s Daily Dish list.
