Just Eat launches new employee benefit service in Ireland

Food delivery platform Just Eat has launched a new employee benefit service through its corporate arm that will help companies provide daily or monthly meal allowances to staff.

Digital food platform Just Eat Pay has no fixed costs, with companies managing their own accounts through a customised dashboard. It will also include a new debit card option that can be used to order food online from the company’s 3,525 partners, and also in person from hospitality businesses who are not part of Just Eat’s network but support Mastercard and Maestro payments.

“It was really important that we had the the ability to go outside Just Eat before we launched; we didn’t want it as just pushing Just Eat,” said Amanda Roche-Kelly, managing director of Just Eat Takeaway Ireland. “We don’t dictate the numbers at all either. We don’t dictate budgets. We don’t dictate where people spend it, and they decide on a daily allowance.”

The company is already in talks with one large corporate in Ireland to use the new benefit, but it is open to companies of all sizes. Just Eat covers the costs associated with using the Mastercard payments system.

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“We’ve obviously trialled it internally in Ireland but it’s used across a couple of our countries globally. It’s well used and well tested and tried, and really seen as a brilliant benefit.”

The initiative is part of Just Eat for Business, the food delivery giant’s corporate arm.

Just Eat Pay, which launched in 2019, is already in operation in a number of Just Eat Takeaway.com’s markets, including the United Kingdom. It was originally conceived as an internal benefit for Just Eat employees that has been expanded to more businesses.

“We are delighted to continue to add further markets such as Ireland to this product offering,” said Matthew Ephgrave, Managing Director of Just Eat for Business. “Just Eat Pay has been hugely successful in the UK market for corporate businesses providing a really great employee benefit. So far, the UK market has seen great uptake of the service with a huge number of companies utilising the Just Eat Pay product offering, providing their employees with a fantastic benefit each month.”

Just Eat has a large share of the Irish food delivery market, with Covid increasing the number of restaurants using its platform during restrictions. Ms Roche-Kelly said the platform continued to see good trading this year compared with pre-Covid times. “We’ve seen a really consistent flow of orders through the platform,” she said.

The company has already filled the 160 jobs it said it would create in November last year as it began a substantial expansion of its Irish operations. It has also opened its new office at the 35 Shelbourne Road building, which gives it further room for future growth.