In times of hardship Australians rally together. We witnessed that resilience during the bushfire crisis and we will see it again during our united response to the economic, physical and emotional strain caused by the coronavirus.

In conversations we’ve had with restaurant partners in the last few hours and days we’ve heard time and again about their drive to remain open so they can offer work to those who need it and to continue to feed their community with fresh, healthy and reliable meals.

The team at Uber Eats will help the more than 22,000 restaurants on our platform across Australia and New Zealand do just that, with newly introduced relief measures designed to make their mission easier during this challenging time.

Our plan to address challenges born by COVID-19 includes making $5 million in funding available for independent restaurants across Australia and New Zealand.The multi-million dollar fund will allow restaurants to deploy promotions to attract customers and will help restaurants time promotions to suit their individual business needs. 

In testing economic circumstances maintaining cash flow and paying staff and suppliers remains a priority for small businesses. Uber Eats will be offering restaurants the option to receive daily payments rather than once a week during the pandemic. In addition to this, all restaurants will pay no service fees on pick up orders until 30 June.

With less people dining out and many events cancelled we can help generate new revenue streams for impacted businesses by unlocking new opportunities. To that end we will be offering a 50 percent reduction on the activation fees to help new restaurants wanting to quickly join the platform. This will be applicable until 15 May.

Uber Eats will also expand the platform’s capabilities to include caterers, who have also been hit hard as people continue to follow health advice and self-isolate or adopt social distancing. 

To show our support for those on the ground working to keep the community safe, we’re also pledging 25,000 delivered meals to hospital workers and frontline services. We will work with local and state governments to determine the best way to support this. 

We are always working to help ensure the safety of everyone on the Uber platform and will continue to be guided by the advice of health experts. 

Restaurants and delivery partners have already begun receiving in-app messages reminding them of basic steps they can take to help prevent the spread of the coronavirus. These will continue.

Uber Eats has also started a campaign to drive awareness of “contactless” delivery, reminding Uber Eats users that they can request deliveries be left on their doorsteps.

Finally, we will continue to support delivery partners who are diagnosed with COVID-19 or placed in quarantine by a public health authority, providing financial assistance for a period of up to 14 days. 

We believe these measures are the right thing to do, but we will continue to monitor the situation to ensure we are doing our best to provide certainty, stability and support to the entire community in this time of need.

Restaurant and Catering Association CEO Wes Lambert added –

“There are thousands of small businesses in the restaurant, café and catering industry that have felt the full force of the coronavirus outbreak, with some reporting bookings and foot traffic down between 80 to 100 percent. 

These measures by Uber are very welcome as they allow small businesses to quickly pivot to still be able to serve great food, keep their doors open and keep staff working throughout these difficult times.”