McDonald's, KFC, and Taco Bell have gone to war in the $100 billion delivery market — here's who does it best (YUM, MCD)

pulse

February 8, 2018 6:03 PM

McDonald's still has the upper hand — but with the Grubhub deal, KFC and Taco Bell have a major opportunity to enter the fast-food deliver war.

On Thursday, KFC and Taco Bell announced plans to roll out delivery at
McDonald's still has the upper hand — but with the Grubhub deal, KFC and Taco Bell have a major opportunity to enter the fast-food deliver war.

Fast-food delivery battles are heating up.

On Thursday, Yum Brands

Last year, Taco Bell CEO Brian Niccol told Business Insider that delivery was customers' top demand.

"We still haven't figured out how to do it," according to Niccol, who said at the time Taco Bell was exploring in-house delivery options.

"Could we probably just go do it? Sure. But it would just be OK," Niccol said. "OK usually ends up in a slow death. You buy a shirt, and you're like, eh, it's OK. But slowly and surely it moves to the back of your closet with the tag still on it. And it never makes it out of the closet because you're like, eh, it's OK."

While Niccol said that Taco Bell had found third-party delivery services weren't fast enough, the chain has experimented with various third-parties, including an ongoing partnership with DoorDash.

Perhaps the most out-of-the-box solution was "Taco Mode" — a feature Taco Bell tested last year that allowed Lyft passengers to push a button to have their driver take them to a Taco Bell drive-thru between 9 p.m. and 2 a.m.

Taco Bell and KFC franchisees are still working with Grubhub on what exactly will be delivered and how deliveries will be executed, so keep an eye out for the chains to start popping up on Grubhub and Seamless in the coming months.

The Grubhub deal — which includes Yum Brands agreeing to buy $200 million of common stock in the delivery company — represents a more overarching strategy for Taco Bell. Further, it proves KFC is ready to get serious about delivery.

As rivals like McDonald's ramp up their own efforts to take over the $100 billion delivery business, it's about time that the chains made an investment in figuring out how to deliver fast food.

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