Food Delivery Platform Trends Restaurant Owners Must Know in 2025

What are the Key Food Delivery Trends for 2025?

The food delivery landscape continues to transform rapidly, driven by evolving consumer expectations and technological advancements. Restaurant owners in Australia need to stay informed about several key trends shaping the future of how customers order and receive food. The online food ordering and delivery platform market in Australia has seen significant growth, with revenue projected to reach US$1.39 trillion in 2025.

One major trend is the continued rise of ghost kitchens (also known as dark kitchens). These are delivery-only kitchens without a traditional storefront, allowing businesses to expand reach into new areas with lower overhead compared to opening a full-service restaurant. Alongside this, virtual brands—delivery-only concepts run out of existing kitchens—allow restaurants to launch new menus without additional storefront investment, according to industry research. Consumers are increasingly expressing a preference for sustainable practices. This translates into a higher demand for eco-friendly packaging options for delivered meals. Restaurants leveraging compostable, recyclable, or reusable containers may gain a competitive edge and appeal to environmentally conscious customers. 

Furthermore, quick commerce (q-commerce), promising ultra-fast delivery times often within 10–15 minutes, is gaining traction, particularly in dense urban areas. While initially focused on groceries, this model is expanding to include ready-to-eat meals, putting pressure on traditional food delivery platform timelines and logistics. Understanding these shifts is crucial for Australian restaurants planning their delivery strategy for 2025 and beyond.

Read more: Ordering in: The rapid evolution of food delivery | McKinsey

How Will AI Impact Food Delivery Platforms?

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is poised to significantly reshape the operations and efficiency of the food delivery platform ecosystem, offering substantial benefits for partner restaurants. One key application is AI-powered route optimization. Machine learning algorithms can analyze traffic patterns, weather conditions, order clustering, and driver availability in real time to determine the most efficient delivery routes, potentially reducing delivery times and fuel costs.  This leads to faster deliveries, improving customer satisfaction and allowing kitchens to handle more orders.

Automated customer service through AI-powered chatbots is another growing area. These bots can handle common inquiries, track orders, and resolve simple issues 24/7, freeing up human staff to deal with more complex problems.For restaurants, this means fewer direct queries about order status routed through their staff.

AI excels at personalization. Food delivery platforms can leverage AI to analyze user order history, preferences, and browsing behaviour to offer highly targeted menu recommendations and promotions. This can increase order frequency and average order value, driving more revenue for participating restaurants.

Many foodservice operators report improved order-volume forecasting accuracy after implementing AI-driven demand-forecasting tools. This allows for better inventory management, optimized staffing levels, and reduced food waste. Ultimately, AI integration within a food delivery platform aims to streamline operations, enhance the customer experience, and improve the bottom line for restaurant partners.

Commission Fees is the Main Concern

Commission fees charged by major third-party food delivery platforms remain a significant concern for many restaurant owners in Australia. These fees, often ranging from 15% to over 30% per order, can substantially erode profit margins, particularly for small and independent businesses operating on tight budgets. The reliance on these platforms for visibility and order volume often leaves restaurants feeling they have little choice but to accept high commission rates.

By driving orders to their own websites or apps, some restaurants report avoiding commissions charged by aggregators, paying only standard credit-card or gateway fees.

Read more: Branded Online Store | Restaurant POS | Eats365 Australia (eats365pos.com)

Benefits of Restaurant-Owned Delivery

The trend towards restaurants establishing their own delivery capabilities, either completely in-house or using white-label delivery logistics providers, is growing as businesses seek greater control and profitability. This move contrasts with relying solely on dominant third-party food delivery platforms. Developing an independent delivery channel presents both advantages and challenges.

Pros of Restaurant-Owned Delivery:

• Cost Savings: Bypassing high commission fees (often 15–30%+) from third-party platforms can significantly improve profit margins per order. 

• Brand Control: Restaurants manage the entire customer experience, from ordering to delivery, ensuring it aligns with their brand standards.

• Direct Customer Relationship & Data: Owning the ordering channel means direct access to valuable customer data (contact information, order history, preferences), enabling targeted marketing, loyalty programs, and personalized communication.

Read more: The 2025 Guide to Restaurant Online Marketing (eats365pos.com)

Cons of Restaurant-Owned Delivery:

• High Initial Investment & Operational Complexity: Setting up an in-house system requires investment in technology (ordering website/app), delivery vehicles, insurance, and managing drivers.

• Logistical Challenges: Managing delivery zones, optimizing routes, scheduling drivers, and ensuring timely deliveries can be complex and resource-intensive, especially during peak hours. 

• Marketing & Visibility: Restaurants lose the built-in customer base and marketing reach provided by major food delivery platform aggregators, requiring significant effort to drive traffic to their own channels.

Restaurants can adopt hybrid approaches—listing on aggregators for exposure while routing orders through integrations (for example, Deliverect’s integration with Uber Direct) to handle deliveries only. The optimal strategy depends on a restaurant's scale, resources, customer base, and strategic priorities, weighing the control and cost benefits against the reach and convenience offered by established platforms.

Read more: Top Tips for a Winning Restaurant Online Ordering System (eats365pos.com)