Meal Delivery Services - A History

Here's a fun topic: how did home meal delivery services first begin and when? It's something that been on my mind lately, so I decided to a little bit of research.

Modern meal delivery services rely primarily on delivery cards to make sure that customers receive their meals on time. A driver picks up the orders, loads them into his vehicle and drives them to their destinations. However, the modern meal delivery service is largely reliant on cars. What were things like before cars became common? Does that mean that there were no meal delivery services? Not quite.

Meal delivery services were originally reliant on bicycles, which had become a widely accessible form of transportation well before the modern automobile. Though bicycles had been around since the turn of the 20th century, they only really grew in popularity, as well as availability, by the 1920s. However, during that decade, the only real deliveries made with bicycles were the mail and small parcels.

By the 1940s, however, the importance of the bicycle as a method of delivery grew. Despite the rise of the automobile, bicycles were far more affordable, and in many ways more versatile. The first widescale meal delivery services began in London during the second world war, and relied heavily on bicycles, being that the city itself was often in ruins, with roads inaccessible to larger vehicles.

The first meal delivery were not exactly the same as the ones we know and love today. London, during the early years of the second world war, was under constant threat of danger. People felt safer in their basements and in local bomb shelters, and venturing outside was at times a very risky affair. To help ensure the well being of London's citizens, the British government, along with local volunteer groups, began organizing ways to keep the city's inhabitants fed.

Groups got together, composed of volunteer chefs, kitchen staff and delivery personal, who would prepare meals and have them delivered. Meal delivery services became an essential service for the duration of the wat.

After the war ended, many of the meal delivery programs which had started up, decided to continue on. They began serving those who had lost their homes during the bombings, as well as helping feed veterans who had just come home from the war and needed help settling back into the swing of things.

 

Meal delivery services began as a service designed to help those in need, and this is something that we might often forget about the current generation of meal services. While people no longer have to live under constant threat, not everyone is able to provide for themselves at all times. The modern meal delivery service, in this vein, continues to offer a viable choice for those in need, for people who might have difficulty in providing for themselves. The original spark is still there, only today it is accessible to everyone who enjoys a good meal at home.