Deliveroo comes to St. Andrews

Decribed by an anonymous Yakker as ‘the best and worst thing to have happened all semester’


For those of you out there who haven’t been endlessly scrolling through YikYak since its resurrection, you might not have known that St Andrews now has the services of Deliveroo, which apparently “lets you order amazing food from the best loved local restaurants who otherwise may not offer delivery”. Yep, now you can get Blackhorn, Zizzi, Prezzo, Tailend and even waffles from St Andrew’s Waffle Company delivered to your door.

Obviously, this is awesome news. Delivery of waffles to your doorstep is one of the advancements of society that many have dreamed of for a long time. And even though at the time of writing this Deliveroo has been available for less than a week, it seems to be (unsurprisingly) popular here in St A’s. The question remains, will it still be warm?

But can burgers and waffles delivered to your door have their down sides?

Unfortunately, yes. A point to be wary of with Deliveroo is a recent controversy involving customers being charged for orders that they did not make. A BBC Watchdog investigation was even done. This was not the direct fault of the company themselves, but scammers who hacked into people’s Deliveroo accounts and ordered from them, managing to get their passwords and order hundreds of pounds’ worth of food.

Like other gig economy jobs (like Uber for example), those who carry out deliveries for Deliveroo are having to work really hard to get the rights that most employees receive, like minimum wage and holiday pay. Many are staging protests and are attempting to get union recognition in order to sort out fair pay and treatment from Deliveroo.

Until very recently, workers were paid per delivery as opposed to per hour, and so during not-so-busy times many would end up being paid well under the national minimum wage. According to their website Deliveroo now pays its workers a minimum wage of ‘£7.25/hr + petrol + tips’, but workers are still considered self-employed and so may not be covered for things like sick pay in the way that most regular employees are. So consider adding a little bit to the driver’s tip when you order, since driving around freezing-cold Scotland on a scooter at night might not pay as well as it should.

Even though those things are really not good, it probably won’t discourage people from using Deliveroo since it means that you don’t have to trek from the badlands into town for your favourite foods, and there is now an alternative to the variety of slightly-too-pricey Indian takeaways on JustEat.

The carnage from a Blackhorn order made for… research.

For all intents and purposes it seems to be a well-run, useful service. The driver was lovely and despite being as busy as it probably has been in its first few days of running, delivery time was surprisingly quick. Also if you have Unidays then you can get free delivery on your Deliveroo orders (you’re welcome).