Postmates Is Making 15-Minute Food Delivery a Reality

You may not have heard of Postmates, but the delivery startup has quietly swept across the country. Its goal? To help you get food and other goods from local stores and restaurants to your door, all without ever leaving your house.

Now it's launching an even speedier service called Postmates Pop that will deliver meals in 15 minutes or less. According to Postmates, the new service offers fresh, hot lunchtime meals from local eateries, averaging around $10 per meal with a $1.99 delivery fee. During testing, Postmates reportedly managed a 7-minute average delivery time.

Pop is kicking off with lunch deliveries in downtown San Francisco (in the SoMa neighborhood), but plans to expand to other cities and times of day soon. If all goes well, Postmates says it wants to add other goods to the menu, too.

Unlike normal deliveries, in which a Postmates courier picks up your requested item, Pop deliveries come straight from the Postmates couriers. They'll carry a daily selection of meals that are ready to deliver on demand.

{{amazon name="OXO Good Grips POP Big Square 4-Quart Storage Container", asin="B000UHYB9E", align="left"}} Couriers will keep the meals in heated containers and deliver them in compostable packaging—Postmates' way of doing its part for the environment.

The selections will change daily, and will even feature dishes made exclusively for the service.

It sounds like a great option for busy office workers, but there's some reason to doubt it'll work for Postmates in the long run. Re/code notes that most delivery companies rely on venture capital to subsidize delivery costs. In other words, even if Postmates Pop proves to be popular, it might not be financially viable.

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