16+ Best Food Delivery Companies: Food, Grocery and Meal Delivery Services

The convenience of having food brought to your home can’t be discounted.

After all, one in three Americans use food delivery at least once a week.

If you want to add some convenience to your dine-out or grocery plans, then let’s look at 16 of the best food delivery companies and how they can help make your dinner plans much easier.

What Are the Top Food Delivery Companies?

When it comes to getting a delicious meal, modern tech gives us a lot of options that can be delivered to one’s door in only a few minutes.

Still, not all food delivery services are the same.

As it stands now, there are three types of food delivery service options: restaurant delivery, grocery delivery, and meal kit delivery.

Each of these delivery options will bring food to your home but will be different in how much extra effort you have to put into making the meal.

Restaurant Delivery Companies

Restaurant delivery companies use technology to pair your food delivery order with a local restaurant.

From there, these delivery apps use a delivery driver to bring prepared meals to the customer.

DoorDash

DoorDash is a restaurant delivery platform that started back in 2013.

The app got its start trying to connect folks with a local restaurant.

Nowadays, the app focuses on both the customer and merchant side of the transaction, releasing features meant to help out both sides of the food transaction.

Availability

DoorDash is available in roughly 850 cities across the United States, Canada, and Australia.

It is most prominent in major cities.

Advantages

The app lets you bring in food from almost any restaurant in your area via delivery.

Disadvantages

DoorDash is well-known for its high delivery fees and app issues.

Uber Eats

As a well-known food delivery app, Uber Eats doesn’t need much introduction.

Founded in 2014 by Uber, this delivery service ranges from local eateries to big chains like Taco Bell and Mcdonald’s.

Availability

Uber Eats is available in about 32 countries, most located in North America, South America, and Europe.

Advantages

Thanks to the wide range of delivery options and its integrations with Uber’s ridesharing services, Uber Eats benefits from being part of a larger service.

Disadvantages

In addition to the occasional long wait times for delivery, Uber Eats don’t offer as many promos or discounts as other delivery platforms.

GrubHub

What started as an online menu service, GrubHub became one of the largest restaurant delivery apps thanks to its early start in the market.

Now, GrubHub does more than just online orders due to its ownership by Just Eat Takeaway.

Availability

With restaurant partners in 40,000 United States cities, you can assume that, if you live in a suburban or urban area, GrubHub delivers to your home.

Advantages

Because of its wide range of partners, GrubHub has one of the widest selections for restaurant takeaway compared to other delivery apps.

Disadvantages

GrubHub has a lot of fees associated with its delivery service, meaning that expenses can rack up when you use the app.

Postmates

Much like GrubHub, Postmates had other plans before becoming a meal delivery service.

While they don’t focus on consumer goods anymore, Postmates works much like the other big-name delivery apps.

Availability

Because Postmates is owned by Uber, the app works in most of the same places as Uber Eats.

Advantages

Thanks to being backed by Uber, Postmates has come a long way to deliver high-quality and healthy meals to its users.

Disadvantages

Drivers will find it hard to make the same money on Postmates they can on other apps due to lower payouts and fewer consistent orders.

Seamless

As with Postmates, Seamless saw itself bought by a parent company after being established.

Just Eat Takeaway, the owners of GrubHub, have rolled this app into their host of delivery options for users.

Availability

Due to its relationship with Just Eat Takeaway and GrubHub, Seamless works in almost any city in North America, Latin America, or Europe.

Advantages

If you’re familiar with the GrubHub platform and instead want to use a service that explores more of the local scene, then Seamless will be an easy transition.  

Disadvantages

Delivery fees can be more expensive on average than other options.

Caviar

Back in 2019, DoorDash bought the food delivery service Caviar to help bring it some higher-end food options from Caviar’s upscale partners.

Availability

Right now, Caviar is only available in seven states and Washington, D.C.

Advantages

The biggest draw of this platform is its ability to bring fine dining to your home.

Orders on Caviar let users order food from higher-end restaurants and have them delivered using DoorDash drivers.

Disadvantages

As an upscale option, Caviar has a higher price tag than DoorDash or Uber Eats.

Which Is the Best?

The best choice for you will depend on your needs.

For the average consumer, DoorDash is hard to pass up between its range of choices for meals and the modest delivery fee it charges.

Grocery Delivery Companies

Rather than have a premade meal sent to your home, you can have quality ingredients come in instead!

Grocery delivery companies give users a way to receive goods to their doorstep using the same technology that restaurant delivery apps use.

Instacart

Founded ten years ago, Instacart follows many of the same ideas that platforms like Uber Eats use.

However, Instacart has shoppers purchase groceries for users and delivers them to their front doors.

Availability

Citizens of the United States and Canada in 5,500 different cities have Instacart operations in their area across 40,000 stores.

Advantages

Free delivery after you hit a certain threshold.

Convenient and streamlined, so you can choose the time of your delivery and not spend much time on your orders.

Disadvantages

Instacart shoppers have full control over what ends up in your grocery bags, meaning that there can be hiccups when a store is out of something you order.

Keep in mind that Instacart customer service can be hit-or-miss.

Shipt

Shipt knows that there’s more to healthy home life than just grocery shopping.

Consumer and home goods are just as important.

So, Shipt has shoppers that deliver both.

Availability

Because of Shipt’s partnership with Target, the service can deliver to most major cities across the United States.

Advantages

In addition to groceries, Shipt shoppers allow you to order things like medicine, bedding, and other home goods.

Same-day delivery is available.

Disadvantages

Requires an annual membership.

Shipt also isn’t available outside the United States.

Peapod

While they normally act as an online grocer, Peapod also lets folks order certain groceries online from partners.

They focus on healthier ingredients, such as organic produce.

Availability

Peapod operates across the United States but is most prominent in big cities like Chicago, New York City, and Boston.

Advantages

If you want fresh and organic groceries, Peapod is an easy way to get hooked up with these products.

Plus, Peapod orders tend to get filled quickly, even compared to other grocery delivery apps.

Disadvantages

Because Peapod doesn’t operate in all cities, it can be troublesome to get an order in.

Also, organic produce is more expensive than others and there is a higher minimum order fee.

Amazon Fresh

Amazon Fresh is Amazon’s grocery delivery and convenience service.

In addition to groceries, Amazon Fresh makes picking up and paying for groceries faster while at the store.

Availability

Amazon Fresh groceries stores only show up in a few states.

So, unless you live near a store in California, Illinois, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Washington State, or Washington, D.C., you won’t be able to use this service.

Advantages

Prime users have access to Amazon Fresh.

There are more than 500,000 products, including from Whole Foods.

Disadvantages

Limited availability and you need to have an annual membership. You will not be able to make substitution requests yourself.

Misfits Market

While we all love the perfect produce at the grocery store, they only represent about half of what’s made.

Misfits Market gives folks a chance to buy less visually appealing groceries at a lower price.

Availability

Misfits Market can deliver to 24 different states right now, but nowhere outside the United States.

The states the service covers include both big and small populations, so a good chunk of Americans have access.

Advantages

Being able to get good produce for a lower price, even if it doesn’t look amazing, is a big deal for your wallet.

Disadvantages

Because Misfits Market works on a seasonal schedule for produce, you can’t get everything all year round like you can at the grocery store.

Hungryroot

Hungryroot mixes both online grocery and meal plan creator to make a service that offers healthy eating options to folks.

Shopping on Hungryroot involves selecting meals and then preparing the food for yourself when it arrives.

Availability

Outside of Alaska and Hawaii, Hungryroots delivers to every state in the US and also to Washington, D.C. Right now, there’s no news about the service expanding out to other countries.

Advantages

Having a service like Hungryroots guide you along with a meal plan can make switching to a healthier diet easier.

Plus, the groceries come to your doorstep so that you don’t have to go to different health food stores.

Disadvantages

Groceries from Hungryroots run on the expensive side, so be prepared to pay a little more than your normal trip to the store.

Which Is the Best?

While specialty options like Hungryroot and Misfits Markets are great, most folks will find Instacart and Shipt fit the bill for their needs.

We recommend checking out some of the other services listed here!

Meal Kit Delivery Companies

Finally, the final kind of food delivery: meal kit services.

These businesses ship preplanned meals for their subscribers, as well as recipe cards to follow along with.

This process helps busy families find a way to add home-cooked meals to their nightly routine without any extra hassle.

HelloFresh

HelloFresh is one of the big names in meal kit delivery.

The company focuses on delivering meals made from sustainable method farms and offers a wide range of organic choices and vegetarian meals.

Availability

As of 2021, HelloFresh ships to 16 different countries across North America and Europe, as well as Australia and New Zealand.

Advantages

HelloFresh’s meal kits are highly customizable and the recipes can be replicated with ingredients you get from your local grocery store.

Disadvantages

Boxes don’t come with a large amount of food, going up to, at most, 12 servings of food for the week.

Blue Apron

Another big name in meal kits, Blue Apron gets its name from the apron their chefs wear when creating the recipes for their food boxes.

While they also focus on sustainable food practices, Blue Apron emphasizes the flavor and enjoyment that comes from home-cooked meals backed up by professional recipes.

Availability

Blue Apron delivers to the contiguous United States, so folks in Alaska, Hawaii, and the rest of the world won’t be able to receive kits.

Advantages

Each of the recipes from Blue Apron comes from a team of chefs.

Plus, Blue Apron also does wine deliveries and has a small market on its website.

Disadvantages

At $7.95 per serving minimum, Blue Apron can be expensive, especially compared to coming up with your own recipes and portions at the grocery store.

Home Chef

Home Chef offers something the higher-end meal kit services don’t: a service that makes sense for the average family.

By focusing on meal and dietary choices, Home Chef gives families something more like a traditional grocery experience.

Availability

Home Chef states that they deliver to 98% of the United States, but doesn’t identify what areas are left out.

Advantages

While other meal kits let you make some minor substitutions, Home Chef lets you change up almost all of what you receive each week.

By offering this choice, Home Chef gives folks a way to customize the meals for their family.

Disadvantages

Home Chef sits a little above some of the other meal kit services in price, coming in at about $9 per serving.

Sunbasket

While other meal kit companies try to keep sustainability in mind, Sunbasket embodies that value.

Sunbasket builds meal kits for all kinds of diets, including vegan and Paleo diets, using organic and sustainable crops from local areas.

Availability

Much like other U.S.-based services, Sunbasket delivers to the contiguous United States.

Advantages

The kits that Sunbasket puts out are more varied than the usual fare, including recipes inspired by Asian and Middle Eastern cuisine.

Disadvantages

Sunbasket is the most expensive meal kit option listed here, coming in at $11.49 per serving for their meal kits.

Do Food Delivery Companies Cost Extra?

While it isn’t fun to admit it, any delivery option you choose is going to cost you extra.

Let’s take a look at why this is the case.

How Food Delivery Prices Work

To deliver a healthy meal to your doorstep, it takes more than just bringing the food to your door.

Every delivery method listed here requires the work of a lot of people to get the order sent off to you.

Each person puts in the effort and uses a system that takes energy to keep running.

All of those factors come together in the delivery you’re charged, increasing the price of your food over the normal price for the fresh meal or the fresh ingredients in your groceries.

How Do You Find A Food Delivery Company Near You?

Because each of these delivery options operates in different parts of the world, let’s talk about how you can find which ones work in your area.

Step-by-Step Instructions

To find a list of all the delivery options in your area, your favorite search engine will be your best tool here.

Follow these steps:

1. Open your web browser and go to the search engine of your choice.
2. Type in “food delivery options” plus your city name.
3. Scroll through the results to see which services handle delivery orders in your area.

Also, you can use this tool to find if a particular service works in your city:

1. Open up a search engine.
2. Type in your city name plus the name of the service.
3. Check the results to see if the service works in your area.

Folks that live in big cities like San Francisco probably don’t need to worry about this.

But, for people in smaller towns, checking what options you have will be a big help.

Working for Food Delivery Companies

With how many food delivery service options there are, there are plenty of opportunities to start a career in the field.

Is It Worth It to Work in Food Delivery?

The value of working in food delivery depends on your goals.

Many folks treat food delivery as a side gig or part-time job instead of their career.

While food delivery can be a good way to earn a little extra money, it might not be the best way to start carving out a sizable long-term income.

Pros

Working in food delivery has some solid perks, especially as a driver:

• Drivers get to set their schedules.
• Work is available in most major population centers.

Cons

However, food delivery isn’t always the right choice, especially because:

• Pay will vary based on your area and the tips you make from delivering.
• Not all jobs in food delivery have clear career advancement tracks.

How Much Do Food Delivery Drivers Make?

Food delivery can be a good way to supplement another income source.

On average, most delivery drivers for the big restaurant food delivery platforms make between $20,000 and $40,000 per year, depending on the app and area.  

Which Food Delivery Company Is Best to Work For?

In general, many folks prefer to work for DoorDash.

The service offers consistent work and reasonable pay compared to other delivery services and tends to stay up on both customer and driver app updates.

Outro

Ultimately, a food delivery company should make it easier for you to get the food that you need when you need it.

Regardless of which of the options listed above appeal to you, they should help you get something delicious to enjoy when needed.

We recommend checking out any of the services listed here in more detail if they catch your eye.