Grubhub has officially published the results from its annual 2024 Delivered Report, which delivers a rather comprehensive insight into consumer ordering trends and behaviors.
Going by the available details, the stated report basically analyzes orders placed throughout the year from restaurants, grocery stores, convenience stores, and more, delivered to customers at home, work, college campuses, hotel rooms, and beyond.
Talk about the results, they showed that people, by and large, rejected the minimalist trend as we witnessed a rise in the end of quiet luxury, neon green aesthetics, loud pop tracks, and a common pride in doing everything to the fullest. This translates to how the majority demonstrated a tendency to get the most out of their purchases, their travel experiences, and certainly their delivery choices.
Next up, the report revealed that chicken was included in 40% of all Grubhub restaurant orders. More on the same would reveal how chicken was also a part of Grubhub grocery store orders almost three times as often as beef.
Almost like an extension of that, extra protein was also found to be more desirable, with 15% of Grubhub Chipotle orders including double protein. Moving on, cottage cheese also experienced a revival, as many customers embraced the protein-packed dairy, transforming trending dishes like cottage cheese toast and flatbreads. This was also evident in a piece of data which said that Grubhub delivered over one ton of cottage cheese orders to customers during the year 2024.
Another dairy item which was discovered to be popular among customers was curd. The top 5 US cities that used curd in the most creative way were New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, San Francisco, and Boston.
Markedly enough, Americans also went in big on espresso. This arrived on the back of hit song Espresso’s launch. In fact, Grubhub revealed espresso orders spiked the week of June 22nd, right as the hit song topped the charts. Complementing the same would be a fact that customers added more espresso shots to their orders than last year. Top 5 US cities in terms of espresso popularity were Miami, Los Angeles, Denver, Boston, and New York.
Beyond that, pickles rose in popularity, an area where briny cucumber flavor witnessed a 14% increase in overall orders. Made-to-order hotdogs, bananas and sodas also topped the list as the most popular items ordered from convenience stores this year.
Grubhub even studied the trendlines of corporate orders. Here, Grubhub saw a 53% increase in corporate coffee orders. Not just that coffee, “Chipotle Boysˮ had a big impact on the lunch scene. This touches on how burrito bowl became the ultimate workday staple – one forkful at a time, multiple times a week. You see, corporate Chipotle lunch orders increased by 27% on Grubhub.
Among other things, Grubhub report found an uptick in tacos’ popularity, as customers ordered nearly 1.3 million birria orders this year alone. We referred to the craze around espresso, but another of its alternatives i.e. energy drinks also saw greater use among customers, especially students. More specifically, February clocked the highest energy drink orders across college campuses, up nearly a third compared to other months.
Similarly, increasing decaf orders chipped in to put together a 5% boost in caffeine-free choices nationwide. We must also mention that 21% of all decaf orders were placed after lunch.
