Foodora’s new CEO tells how the company plans to challenge Wolt in the tight courier market

Courier service Foodora has a new CEO Jacob Segercrantzilla43, has a clear vision: Foodora must be able to supply Finns with much more than just restaurant food.

Segercrantz started as the company’s CEO for Finland on Monday.

Segercrantz, who previously worked as the Finnish country manager of the payment service Klarna and as the Finnish CEO of Edenred, which offers employee benefits, aims to propel Foodora to new growth and challenge its worst competitor, Wolt.

Foodora has also recently moved to new office premises in the center of Helsinki. In the center of the office in Uusikarhe is a billiard table upholstered in the company’s signature pink color.

Last in Foodora’s operations in Finland faced headwinds.

Last year, the turnover of Foodora, or Delivery Hero Finland, decreased by 29 percent from the previous year to approximately 124 million euros. In 2022, the turnover was around 175 million euros.

According to the company’s financial statements, the decrease in turnover was influenced by both changes to accounting practices made at the end of 2022 and changes in the competitive environment.

However, the company made an operating profit of around 132,000 euros last year, while in 2022 the loss was more than 15 million euros.

Foodora is part of the German Delivery Hero group, which operates in more than 70 countries. According to the financial statements, the parent company ended up capitalizing the company with a good 13 million euros last year.

The financial statements state that the continuity of the company’s operations depends on the parent company’s funding in the current financial period as well.

I’m growing In the future, under the leadership of Segercrantz, Foodora will look for snacks even more in the grocery store.

“Today, people like to order products other than restaurant portions. Developing that range is something we want to invest in,” says Segercrantz.

In itself, Foodora is nothing new in grocery shopping. Previously, the company sold products through its own Foodora Markets.

However, Finland was not a favorable market for Foodora Markets. In May the company said that he will start change negotiations and close all his markets. Stores in other countries will continue to operate as normal.

Now a new boost is being sought through various partnerships, and the goal is that in the future more than food shopping could be ordered through Foodora.

Segercrantz himself says that he has previously ordered flowers from Foodora, for example.

“There are really many opportunities to find different products that consumers can then order directly at home, such as pharmacy products, cat food, cosmetics and anything else.”

Here, Foodora is clearly following in Wolt’s footsteps. Wolt has been actively looking for partners and invested in the supply of consumables for a long time. For example, in Helsinki, Wolt carries goods ranging from sex toys to medicines and pet supplies. Wolt also has its own Wolt markets and cooperates extensively with K group stores.

Foodora is currently running together with the S group experiment, where you can order products from the stores in Oulu and Kuopio via Foodora. Segercrantz says the experiences have been positive, but does not comment on whether the cooperation will continue after the pilot.

In the future Foodora also intends to invest in the fact that the use of the courier service is not only the trendsetter i.e. the luxury of pioneers, but everyone would have the opportunity to use the service.

One way to do that is to ensure the affordability of the service, says Segercrantz.

“Especially in this inflationary situation, it is important that the pricing is something that people can afford.”

When asked, Segercrantz does not comment on whether Foodora intends to lower its own pricing. However, the company is constantly running various discount campaigns and will continue to do so, he says.

Sometimes there have also been excesses. In January, Foodora started the campaign, where all Hesburger products were sold at half price to Foodora pro members. There were so many orders that some Hesburgers were thrown into chaos and the employees even had to flex their free time to meet the congestion. After that, Foodora changed the discount percentage of the campaign to a more moderate one.

Woltin and platform economy services like Foodora do not work without couriers. Their position has also been one of the industry’s pain points.

The labor law status of couriers has been twisted both in Finland and in the EU. In February occupational health and safety authority said that he is applying to the Supreme Administrative Court for permission to appeal against the decision of the Hämeenlinna Administrative Court, according to which couriers are independent entrepreneurs instead of employees. The EU Parliament, on the other hand, approved in April of the Directivewhich aims to improve the rights of platform workers, such as food couriers.

Segercrantz assures that it is important for him to ensure that the dispatchers have good living conditions and good working conditions.

“But there are currently around 6,000 couriers in our network, which speaks for the fact that there is a demand for such job opportunities. And if there was no benefit for them to do this work, there certainly wouldn’t be so many willing.”