Food Delivery Is A 'Rotten Business,' Says Corby Kummer

Food writer Corby Kummer spoke to Boston Public Radio on Tuesday about how the pandemic has affected the lives of food delivery workers.

“So much of the gig economy is being laid bare by the pandemic,” he said. “In one way, restaurant delivery has gone up by 40 or 50 percent, a huge amount.”

DoorDash went public on the New York Stock Exchange in December. But it’s one of the worst actors in the industry, Kummer noted. “It steals tips from workers and it directs them to deliberately unprofitable roads that won’t pay off for delivery workers,” he said.

DoorDash is doing very well, but it’s a “rotten business” for the actual delivery people, Kummer added. “Do anything you can to avoid DoorDash, GrubHub, Seamless, and UberEats,” he said.

Kummer is a senior editor at The Atlantic, an award-winning food writer, and a senior lecturer at the Tufts Friedman School of Nutrition and Policy.