Changing consumer habits lure travel titans into Indonesia’s food delivery space

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Hi readers,

“What should I eat today?” This has been the constant question on my mind as we grappled with social distancing measures amid the Covid-19 pandemic.

I live far away from my family, so I usually go out to buy food. But since I couldn’t really do that, I’ve been using food delivery apps almost every day. I’m not the only one whose habits have changed, so it’s no surprise that even travel companies like Traveloka and AirAsia are also delivering meals in Indonesia.

However, food delivery may be a short-term solution for them as they recover from the pandemic and domestic travel begins to pick up again. More importantly, both Traveloka Eats and AirAsia Food have joined a market that has long been dominated by Gojek’s GoFood and GrabFood.

Of course, a lot of factors will affect the growth of these new players and whether they can break into the GoFood-GrabFood duopoly.

A price war may seem inevitable, but there are other ways to compete in this space.

— Jofie Yordan, journalist at Tech in Asia

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