Behind the partnership: fighting global hunger with the World Food Progamme

Next Friday (October 16th) is World Food Day, a day to promote global awareness and action for those who suffer from hunger. Globally, one in eleven people do not have enough food to lead an active and healthy life. With food delivery being the core of Delivery Hero’s business, it is near and dear to our hearts to provide everyone with access to nutritious food, which is why we want to take responsibility to join the fight against global hunger.

Recently, we announced that Delivery Hero is partnering with the United Nations World Food Programme to integrate its ShareTheMeal donation feature into our delivery apps. Our customers around the world can seamlessly “share meals” to people in need, supporting the fight against global hunger at the tap of a finger. 

Both teams from Delivery Hero and ShareTheMeal have been working closely together for over a year to build the best customer experience while empowering users to give back and make a positive impact. Today, we take a peek behind the scenes of this collaboration by talking to Jeff Oatham, Director Sustainability and CSR at Delivery Hero, and Massimiliano Costa, Head of ShareTheMeal.

What is the goal of this partnership?

Jeff: Our collaboration with ShareTheMeal perfectly exemplifies how tech innovation can be put at the service of a cause we truly care about. Delivery Hero has always been committed to creating positive impact, and one way to do this is by working closely with partners who share that vision. Together, we want to enable customers to donate meals through our apps, so that we can support the World Food Programme’s ambition to end world hunger by 2030.

Massimiliano: ShareTheMeal is the fundraising and advocacy app of the United Nations World Food Programme. It was launched in 2015 and its goal was to create a very simple tool that allows everyone to seamlessly make small donations with tangible impacts. From the start, we decided to do this through a mobile-first solution that would be appealing to digital natives. This collaboration with Delivery Hero helps us reach out to a much wider audience, and to empower all users to feel like they are heroes too by connecting them to a cause they care about.

How did the partnership start?

Jeff: Delivery Hero and ShareTheMeal have been in talks for a number of years, with a vision to integrate ShareTheMeal’s API into Delivery Hero’s products. What truly helped push this idea forward a year ago was the creation of a sustainability and CSR team at Delivery Hero. All of a sudden, there was a dedicated set of people who started putting this as a number one priority in the company’s agenda. We then connected product and tech teams from both companies together, and the project was officially on the way.

Integrating our donation feature into an app that delivers food to people makes a lot of sense

Massimiliano Costa

Massimiliano: This partnership has been a dream of mine since 2015: integrating our donation feature into an app that delivers food to people makes a lot of sense. But of course these things take time, and you have to have all the right ingredients in place: the right technology, the right timing, the right people, etc. 

Throughout the years, this vision always stayed on our radar. Since our offices are located just ten minutes away from Delivery Hero’s, it was easy to keep the conversation going. Approximately one year ago, both parties felt ready to kickstart the collaboration. From then on, we have had to iron out all the details, build a scalable solution taking into account all the complexities of the systems, etc. One year later, we are extremely proud to show our solution to the world.

How is it beneficial for all parties involved?

Jeff: For us at Delivery Hero, it means connecting us deeper to one of our main values, “We are heroes because we care”. We are always looking at how to make the delivery industry more sustainable, and one of the ways we can do that is through giving back to local communities. With food delivery being our core business, one of our ambitious CSR goals is to donate 10 million meals by the end of 2021. 

Next to that, we also try to deliver an amazing experience to our customers, and connecting them to a cause they care about feeds into that ambition. Together with ShareTheMeal, we empower them to make a difference.  

Massimiliano: For us at ShareTheMeal, this integration is a fantastic opportunity, mainly because it allows us to reach out to a much larger audience than ever before. We know that the younger generation wants to make a difference in the world, but also highly values seamless digital products and experiences.

We are thrilled to count on Delivery Hero’s strong commitment and innovation capabilities to implement our donation feature into their widely used delivery apps. As part of their everyday delivery experience, customers now have the opportunity to help hungry families in some of the most dramatic food crises in the world.

What does the integration look like for the end customer?

Jeff: The end goal of the partnership is to integrate a donation functionality in Delivery Hero’s local apps, so that donating becomes an integral part of the order flow and customer journey. 

In the markets where we roll this out, customers will see the feature in what we call a ‘post-order page’, right after having ordered their meal. They can then decide to donate, choose an amount and click on pay. Simple and seamless.

Massimiliano: One of our claims at ShareTheMeal has always been “with very few taps, you can feed a child in need for a day”. The goal was to let people who are using Delivery Hero local apps do the same as part of their ordering experience. The feature is ShareTheMeal branded, which also helps us generally raise more awareness on our cause.

What do you admire the most about each other’s businesses?  

Jeff: The sheer ambition of ShareTheMeal and the World Food Programme to end world hunger is truly inspiring to me and all the Delivery Hero teams. Not only does the ShareTheMeal team bring that passion and drive to the table, they also demonstrated that they were at the forefront of tech innovation by developing a very clever API that made the technical integration a smooth process for all parties involved.

Massimiliano: What you have built at Delivery Hero in terms of technology is truly spectacular. As people working in digital startups, our main goal is to empower people to do things previously unthinkable by creating innovative products. Delivering an amazing experience is obviously the core of your business.

The end goal is to integrate a donation functionality in Delivery Hero’s local apps, so that donating becomes an integral part of the order flow

Jeff Oatham

I am also very grateful to the Delivery Hero teams for recognizing that our cause is worth investing in – I really felt an incredible drive from all teams to push the boundaries of the delivery industry and make a difference. 

How do you see the project evolving?

Jeff: We are now starting with integrating the feature in a range of our markets, including Bulgaria, Malaysia, Norway, Romania and Sweden. Going forward, we want to roll out and scale as fast as possible. We hope in the coming months to have the feature live across many of our regions and on multiple Delivery Hero apps.

Massimiliano: I think that this is just the beginning of our collaboration. I admire the products and service that Delivery Hero has built all around the world, and feel like there is so much more we can explore together. Innovation is at the heart of what both Delivery Hero and ShareTheMeal do, so I have no doubt that new ideas will stem from this first integration.