Own Your Delivery Channel: A UK Startup Growth Play

Most UK food startups think delivery apps are “marketing”. They’re not. They’re distribution.

That distinction matters because distribution platforms are built to own the customer, not introduce you to them. If your brand is growing but your margins are shrinking, if reviews mention “late delivery” you couldn’t control, or if you can’t even email your regulars—your marketing isn’t broken. Your channel strategy is.

In the Startup Marketing United Kingdom series, we keep coming back to one theme: sustainable growth comes from controlling the parts of the funnel that create loyalty. Michael Olaleye, founder of Tasty African Food, put a stake in the ground after years on third‑party platforms: he built his own ordering app to reclaim the customer experience, data, and brand.

Third-party delivery platforms: reach that comes at a price

Third-party apps deliver discoverability fast—but they also change your unit economics and your ability to build a brand.

Most platforms charge commissions that can sit around 30%+ (often before extra fees, promos, and ad placements). For a restaurant operating on tight margins, a 30% take rate isn’t a “cost of marketing”; it’s a structural tax on growth.

Just as damaging is the brand experience. When a customer orders through a marketplace:

• Your menu is filtered (items missing, modifiers hidden, images cropped)
• Your tone disappears (the app’s UI replaces your brand personality)
• Your service reputation becomes shared (late riders and app glitches still hit your reviews)

Tasty African Food saw the classic symptoms: customers couldn’t find the full menu, restaurants were shown as “closed” due to errors, and delivery issues generated complaints the business couldn’t fix directly. The harsh bit? Customers blame the restaurant because that’s the name they remember.

A platform can send you orders, but it can’t protect your reputation when it’s the one breaking the experience.

The hidden marketing cost: you can’t build a list

If you can’t identify repeat buyers, you can’t run real retention marketing.

Marketplaces typically limit access to customer data and behavioural insights. That means you can’t reliably answer:

• Who orders twice a month vs once a quarter?
• Which dishes create repeat behaviour?
• What’s the best time to send an offer?
• Which postcode is ready for a new location?

In 2026, first-party data isn’t a buzzword; it’s the basis of profitable marketing. Without it, you’re stuck buying the same customer again and again through marketplace fees.

Why owning the customer experience is a marketing strategy

Owning the delivery channel isn’t mainly a tech decision. It’s a positioning and growth decision.

Michael’s point—“why are we letting someone else own the customer experience?”—is marketing at its core. Your experience is your brand. If you outsource it, you outsource differentiation.

When a customer orders from your own app or website, you control:

• The story (heritage, ingredients, community)
• The menu architecture (bundles, add-ons, seasonal specials)
• The pricing logic (no forced discounting to compete in a grid)
• The relationship (email/SMS consent, loyalty, winback flows)

This is how Tasty African Food moved from “takeaway visibility” to “brand community”, especially important for cuisine categories that benefit from education and cultural context.

Brand isn’t your logo—it's what happens when things go wrong

Here’s the thing about delivery: problems happen. Traffic. Weather. Missing items. Confused addresses.

On marketplaces, your ability to recover is limited. On owned channels, you can build service recovery into the journey:

• Instant “sorry” credits for late orders
• Proactive order status messages
• Direct support chat
• Follow-up feedback requests that go to your team, not the platform

That changes the lifetime value maths. A customer who has a problem handled well often becomes more loyal than someone who never had a problem.

Case study lens: what Tasty African Food did (and what you can copy)

Tasty African Food didn’t try to clone Uber Eats. They mapped an experience that fit their brand: full menu visibility, confidence in ordering, and a direct relationship.

They partnered with a small tech team, launched a branded ordering app, improved it over time, and then used it to introduce features marketplaces struggle to prioritise for any single restaurant:

• Click-and-collect
• Pre-ordering
• Loyalty rewards
• Targeted offers
• Real-time insights

The important part for founders: they treated the app as a growth asset, not a one-off build.

What “owning your channel” looks like in practice

If you’re building your own ordering experience, the goal isn’t bells and whistles. It’s measurable control.

Start with these non-negotiables:

1. Full menu control (including modifiers, upsells, bundles)
2. Payment and checkout that doesn’t leak (fast, minimal steps)
3. Customer accounts + consent (email/SMS opt-in done properly)
4. Operational reliability (accurate prep times, order throttling)
5. Analytics you’ll actually use (repeat rate, AOV, cohort retention)

Then add features that improve retention rather than vanity:

• “Order again” in one tap
• Smart favourites
• Loyalty that rewards frequency (not just discounting)
• Delivery zones aligned to margins (not hope)

The UK startup playbook: when to build vs when to stay on platforms

You don’t need to quit marketplaces overnight. But you do need a plan to stop being dependent.

A practical approach I’ve seen work for UK food businesses:

Step 1: Use platforms for acquisition, not identity

Treat Uber Eats/Deliveroo as paid acquisition channels.

• Keep a tight menu (best-sellers only)
• Price for commission (don’t subsidise the platform)
• Track profitability per channel weekly

If a dish isn’t profitable after commission and operational load, remove it. You’re not a charity for aggregator economics.

Step 2: Build an owned channel that earns repeat orders

Your owned channel doesn’t need to beat the marketplace on “choice”. It needs to beat it on relationship.

Do three things early:

• Add packaging inserts that push re-ordering direct (QR code + clear reason)
• Offer loyalty only on your own channel
• Build a winback flow: “Haven’t ordered in 30 days? Here’s a personal nudge.”

Step 3: Shift demand with incentives that don’t wreck margins

Discounts are the blunt tool. Better tools include:

• Free side on direct orders above £X
• Priority prep lane for app orders at peak times
• Limited-edition dishes available only direct

These create a reason to switch without training customers to wait for 20% off.

Step 4: Measure the metrics that prove channel independence

If you want investor-credible growth, track these monthly:

• Direct order share (%) = direct orders / total delivery orders
• Repeat rate (30/60/90 days) by channel
• Contribution margin per channel (after fees, packaging, refunds)
• Customer acquisition cost on platforms vs owned
• Lifetime value for app users vs marketplace users

A simple north star: increase direct order share by 5–10 percentage points per quarter once your owned channel is stable.

“People also ask”: common questions founders have about building an ordering app

Is building our own delivery app only for big chains?

No. The threshold isn’t “chain size”; it’s repeat behaviour. If you have regulars and you’re paying commissions on their repeat orders, you’re funding someone else’s profit.

Won’t we lose visibility if we focus on direct?

You can keep marketplaces for discovery. The aim is to convert repeat customers to direct over time. Visibility and ownership can coexist.

What’s the fastest way to make a direct channel work?

Make the direct experience simpler than the marketplace for regulars: saved favourites, one-tap re-order, reliable delivery windows, and loyalty that feels fair.

What should we build first: app or website ordering?

For many UK startups, a mobile-optimised web ordering flow can be enough initially. An app becomes more compelling when you’re ready to use push notifications, loyalty, and stored preferences heavily.

The stance: marketplaces are a tool, not a home

Tasty African Food’s story is useful because it’s not a tech flex. It’s a marketing decision made by a business that cares about loyalty, trust, and long-term brand equity.

If you’re a UK startup serious about scaling, owning your delivery channel is one of the cleanest ways to stop paying for the same customer repeatedly. It gives you first-party data, lets you control service recovery, and creates room to build a brand people actively choose.

The next move is simple: audit how much of your repeat revenue is going through third parties, then set a direct-order target for Q1 and Q2. If you’re still growing in 2026, you’ll eventually need to own the relationship anyway—better to start while the stakes are manageable.

What would change in your business if you could contact every repeat customer tomorrow—and make them an offer that actually fits what they order?