Meal sharing concept is too finicky IMO. These places doing pre-made, delivered food are on the right track but I imagine the delivery component is a heavy cost.
I'd be curious to know if any of the food delivery apps have incentivised delivery to grouped buyers. e.g., $10 if someone buys, $8 if 5+ people in the same street buy, etc. Encourage delivery efficiency and also delegate marketing to word of mouth.
Delivery is not as heavy as a cost as running the kitchen itself. I think food production is so overlooked in these discussions. The operating cost for a kitchen is insane, labor, ingredients, storage, inventory, etc...
Peter Thiel always uses restaurants as a good example of a business model that is so costly that there's no margin left, combined with the impossibility of a monopoly. So you take something that's already tight on margins and you make that even tighter with delivery.
