Delivery Hero’s Foodpanda Will Exit Germany, The Company Plans To Sell Foodpanda Japan By Q1 2022

Four months after relaunching its services in Germany, Delivery Hero is shutting down its food delivery operations – Foodpanda, in the country. According to a press statement released today, Foodpanda will be exiting six German cities including Cologne, Düsseldorf, Frankfurt, Hamburg, Munich and Stuttgart.

Foodpanda, founded in 2012, is a Singaporean online food delivery and grocery delivery service owned by Delivery Hero. As per Wikipedia, today, Foodpanda operates as the lead brand for Delivery Hero in Asia, with its headquarters in Singapore and is currently the largest food and grocery delivery platform in Asia, outside of China, operating in 12 markets across Asia.

Following the exit of its leading brand, Delivery Hero plans on shifting its focus to an innovation hub in central Berlin to pilot new products and technologies. Apart from the announcement of the exit of its Foodpanda, Delivery Hero also announced that it plans on selling its Japan Foodpanda wing in the first quarter of 2022.

Speaking on the decision, Delivery Hero’s co-founder and CEO Niklas Ostberg said that “Facing a very different reality now than we did entering these markets, it is with a heavy heart that we need to pursue other growth opportunities with a larger potential. Despite having built up two fantastic Foodpanda teams showing great progress, it has become increasingly difficult to create true value for our ecosystem in these countries”.

The company also added that it would try all its best to move Foodpanda employees to other positions within the group company and staff who do not get to continue with the company will be given a severance package.

Following the Wednesday announcement, Shares of Delivery Hero soared 6 percent on Wednesday morning automatically giving the company the title of the biggest gainer in the pan-European Stoxx 600 index. At 4 percent, Delivery Hero’s biggest rival Just Eat Takeaway took second place.