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Uber's new Southeast Asia owner Grab rolls out UberEats-like service

GrabFood is based on Uber's food delivery platform.

Zoey Chong Reporter
Zoey is CNET's Asia News Reporter based in Singapore. She prefers variety to monotony and owns an Android mobile device, a Windows PC and Apple's MacBook Pro all at the same time. Outside of the office, she can be found binging on Korean variety shows, if not chilling out with a book at a café recommended by a friend.
Zoey Chong
2 min read
grabfood-l-delivery-partner

A GrabFood deliveryman prepares to send a piping hot and (presumably) delicious meal to a hungry eater.

Grab

When Uber sold its Southeast Asia business to Grab in March, UberEats was part of the deal. Now, the Southeast Asian ride-hailing king has built on the service to launch its own food delivery platform.

Called GrabFood, the service is available in Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam, and will be rolled out to Singapore then the Philippines "within this quarter," Grab announced at a media briefing on Monday morning. The beta service now boasts "thousands" of merchants.

Like UberEats, there is no minimum order requirement you have to make, although James Ong, head of GrabFood Singapore, added that the feature could be offered only to selected customers in the future.

In Singapore, GrabFood's rivals such as Deliveroo and FoodPanda require you to make a minimum order or pay the difference in order to checkout.

GrabFood will also give you five GrabRewards points for every dollar spent on each order, which the company said can be used to redeem rides and other discounts.

The company's newest addition is part of efforts to build an "everyday app" offering "complementary services on one platform," said Lim Kell Jay, head of Grab Singapore.

"GrabFood is a major milestone in our journey to becoming the everyday app for consumers," added Ong.

Watch this: These robots are delivering food to your door

Correction, May 28 at 6:30 p.m. PT: This article originally misstated GrabFood's availability. It was already available in Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam.

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