How Frank decides when to offer you orders?

First, Frank works out when the restaurant will have an order ready. It does this by looking at a number of factors, like what type of food is being prepared and how busy the restaurant is at that time.

Then, Frank works out who is the best located rider to deliver that order at the right time. The time it takes to deliver an order depends on lots of things, like the distance needed to travel, the amount of traffic on the roads and how long it may take to park up. We look at every single thing to work out how long it should take a rider to get to the restaurant.

Frank uses this information to work out if you’re the best located rider for the order. If so, you’ll be offered the order at the right moment – to make sure your arrival time at the restaurant will best match the time that the order will be ready for pick up. This way, the amount of time you spend waiting at the restaurant will be as short as possible.

We know Frank doesn’t get this right every time, but we’re always working to get better. For example:

If restaurants are very busy or it takes longer than expected to prepare the order, we’ll learn for next time and allow more preparation time before you’re offered the order. 

We also take on board the information you share with us about each stage of an order. If there’s a long gap between the time you tell us you’ve arrived at the restaurant and the time you’ve picked up the order, we’ll try to make our timings more accurate. 

Frank constantly working behind the scenes, reassessing and planning orders to make sure order assignments are as efficient as possible. It aims to offer you the order at the right time, so that you arrive at the restaurant as close as possible to the order collection time. It’s always one step ahead, working to become more and more accurate to make the Deliveroo experience the best it can be for everyone. It’s designed to help:

  • Riders make more deliveries and therefore more money.
  • Restaurants prepare more orders, more efficiently.
  • Customers receive quality food quicker.

Making sure orders are ready just in time for you

We’ve changed how we calculate restaurant prep times

We used to ask restaurants to start preparing the food as soon as the customer placed the order. But restaurants and riders told us that this often didn’t match the time that riders arrived at the restaurant. So we’ve launched a new way to predict restaurant prep time more accurately and reduce your wait time. 

We’re now telling restaurants to start cooking once we know when you’re going to arrive, so that restaurants will know you’re on the way and prepare the food just in time for your arrival. 

But in order for this system to work to reduce your wait times everyone needs to do their part. Restaurants will need to follow the new timings, and for you, remember to always: