Legend tells the tale of an ancient bird, oft called the phoenix, which upon perishing, has the opportunity to rise from its milky remains and come alive once more. I may be getting the story wrong, but that’s the basic gist. It seems grocery delivery service MilkRun has been gifted a similar second chance at life, but things are a bit curdled behind the scenes.
MilkRun announced that, despite literally packing up shop and leaving hundreds without a job in April of this year, it will be returning with a vengeance.
However, the cream may be different this time around, as it’s been resurrected by none other than Woolworths. Basically, Woolies’ grocery delivery service Metro60 is now merged with MilkRun to be the one app.
MilkRun rose to prominence on the back of its dedication to giving delivery riders better pay and working conditions than its competitors. This is part of the reason why it ultimately failed to keep running — other companies could do the same job without losing half as much money, simply by underpaying staff.
The reason Woolworths acquiring MilkRun is such a shitty end result is ‘cos the company was accused of underpaying staff a total of $315 million in 2020.
Kinda seems like the polar opposite of MilkRun’s original business philosophy. Unfortunately, a company with a shoddy history of paying workers now has an even bigger monopoly over the grocery delivery service industry in this country. Great!
woolies buying milkrun and reviving it as a brand for their metro delivery is the grocery wars equivalent of tearing off your enemy's face and wearing it as a war mask pic.twitter.com/C2m00brSa1
— cameron wilson (@cameronwilson) May 24, 2023
In case you missed it, earlier this year, MilkRun founder Dany Milham told employees that MilkRun would be shutting up shop for good.
“Since we announced our structural changes in February, economic and capital market conditions have continued to deteriorate, and while the business has continued to perform well, we feel strongly that this is the right decision in the current environment,” an email obtained by the Australian Financial Review in April read.
“We set out to change the face of grocery delivery in Australia, while staying true to our values, people and culture, and we did that thanks to the passion, dedication, and hard work of so many of you, and you should be really proud of what we have achieved together.”
It’s good to know that MilkRun is back — those delivery drivers are fast as fuck — but it will be interesting to see how Woolies treats its new employees considering it can barely look after the ones it already has.
Editor’s note: an earlier version of this article stated that MilkRun and Metro60 were competing as separate apps. This has been amended.
The post Here’s Why MilkRun’s Return From The Dead Is Actually A Little More Curdled Than It Seems appeared first on PEDESTRIAN.TV .
