Just Eat enters the catering market with EUR 18m acquisition of City Pantry
The purchased startup currently feeds over 120,000 people monthly.
London-based food delivery company Just Eat has entered into the catering business, announcing that it has bought City Pantry for approximately EUR 18 million.
Founded in 2014, City Pantry was founded in 2014 and is a B2B catering marketplace that links caterers and restaurants with corporate customers to provide food for employees and clients.
Also based in London, the startup currently feeds over 120,000 people for more than 1,000 corporate customers each month.
Working with hundreds of suppliers to provide meals for corporate events and business meetings, City Pantry’s offering also includes team meals, regular employee meal plans, individual ordering options and pop-ups that bring the restaurant to your office or event.
Just Eat intends to leverage City Pantry’s brand, technology, and B2B experience to expand into a UK market estimated to be worth around £10 billion a year, providing corporate customers with food for delivery, and restaurants with access to pre-scheduled corporate orders. Just Eat also plans to use its presence internationally to scale City Pantry’s model into more markets.
“What we eat in our personal lives has dramatically changed in the past 10 years in terms of quality and choice,” City Pantry founder and CEO Stuart Sunderland said. “The food revolution is now beginning to happen at work and City Pantry is at the forefront of this.”
“City Pantry has a well-established business, fantastic expertise and an entrepreneurial spirit that matches our own. We look forward to bringing the company into the Just Eat family and working with them to grow in the UK and internationally in this exciting and dynamic market,” Peter Duffy, Interim CEO of Just Eat, added.
The initial cash payment of €18 million was paid using existing resources, and further remittances may follow depending on whether certain financial criteria are met over the next three years.
The acquisition of City Pantry also follows Just Eat’s acquisition of restaurant software groups Practi and Flyt earlier in the year.
