It currently has 20 dark stores in operation across six cities in five emirates, but wants to open more stores in Umm Al Quwain and Fujairah.
The food delivery service Talabat is on course to be operating 40 dark stores in the UAE by the end of the year, as it looks to double its portfolio. The aim is to have their stores that enable 15-minute delivery present in every Emirate by the end of 2021.
Launching in Dubai in early 2020 after the pandemic forced lockdowns and shut shops and people in their homes for months, the company unveiled the first Daily by Talabat store in Kuwait, even then with the promise of food delivery in 15 minutes.
The company’s CFO Khaled Alfakesh told Arabian Business: “If we don’t invest in infrastructure we can’t do it. It’s the technology that enables efficiency to be able to assign the right order to the right driver at the right time.”
Alfakesh said that turning around quick deliveries is logistically challenging, but investing in infrastructure and ensuring the right technology is in place to enable fast service is key.
In the UAE, around 79 per cent of consumers shifted to online grocery shopping during the pandemic, and more than 47 per cent of them expect to maintain this new habit, citing simplicity, convenience and time saved, Karl Nader wrote in an op-ed for Arabian Business.
