Menulog to undergo rebrand following merger with $12b food giant Just Eat Takeaway

Menulog entered the New Zealand market in 2012. Photo / Supplied

The green branding and chef-hat logo Menulog was founded on will soon be a feature of the past as the online food ordering company rebrands following a merger with global giant Just Eat Takeaway.

Menulog, which says it has 900 restaurants using its platform across New Zealand, will this month undergo a rebrand, replacing its green chef-hat logo with an orange house with cutlery to align with its global counterparts in Europe and North America.

Just Eat, Menulog's British parent company, was acquired by Dutch food delivery company Takeaway.com earlier in the year for £5.9 billion ($11.3b), creating a $12b firm.

The deal was finalised in April and formed the Just Eat Takeaway.com Group, making the company one of the world's largest food delivery operations, or the world's second-largest outside of China.

As part of the merger, the company plans to heavily invest in the New Zealand market, to the tune of around $500,000 in the first instance.

The local rebrand, to feature the same logo and branding as platforms overseas, would enable Menulog to leverage off the technology being used in other markets, Morten Belling, managing director of Menulog, told the Herald.

Aligning Menulog with the group's global brands would accelerate growth for the local platform, which has order commission rates of 10 to 14 per cent, he said.

Menulog was founded in Sydney in 2006 and entered the New Zealand market in 2012. It has operations in 40 towns and cities across the country.

"Being part of a leading global online food delivery marketplace enables us to tap into world-class functionality with a globally recognisable product. For example, Menulog will link in with global sister apps, providing a new opportunity for travellers or those with international app stores to use the app locally, driving more business for local restaurants and couriers when international travel resumes," Belling said.

The app would seek to ramp up the number of restaurants on its platform to offer more choice for consumers, he said.

Uber Eats is Menulog's biggest competitor in the New Zealand market, although it operates slightly differently, providing the ordering technology and not the drivers to deliver orders.

Morten Belling, managing director of Menulog. Photo / Supplied

The company says its self-delivery function by a restaurant allows it to offer lower commission rates than competitors - about half of those on the UberEats platform, which has a commission rate of about 30 per cent ordinarily or 16 per cent for restaurants that use their own drivers.

Belling said new ownership structure and investment would "give more power back to restaurants" and enable lower commission rate charges.

"As part of the Just Eat group we've always had a green logo and that has been very unique to Australia and New Zealand. What we're trying to do now is move away from that and effectively leverage on the benefits that we can get out of being part of the global network so we will have more global recognition - not just on the brand side of things, but we'll also accelerate our investment into our products and technology."

Menulog says it is aligning with its global counterparts to "achieve economies of scale". Photo / Supplied

The Menulog app would soon become a global app and will allow consumers to switch between company brands depending on where in the world they are located, he said.

"The benefit of doing this is that we can operate at scale and achieve economies of scale."

With new investment into the market, Menulog would also be able to expand further geographically and within the 40 towns and cities it is operating in, Belling said.

"The benefits for customers and restaurants working with Menulog is that you can go quite regional and with investment we will try to take this even further, as we have done in Australia; and it's worked really well for us."

Just Eat Takeaway.com operates businesses in 23 markets, including Australia, most of Europe and Canada.

Just Eat posted annual revenue of £1b ($1.9b) in 2019, while Takeaway.com posted €427 million ($741m) in revenue.

Earlier this month, Just Eat Takeaways acquired US-based food ordering and delivery platform Grubhub.