'I've always been a hustler': How Shane Delia is embracing food delivery

Uber Eats nearly destroyed Shane Delia's business, but now the chef and TV personality is set to ramp up his reliance on the food delivery service, opening seven more restaurants.

Delia, 38, made his name with his Middle Eastern fine dining restaurant Maha in Melbourne's central business district but two years ago he decided to tap into the move towards more casual dining by opening kebab store Biggie Smalls.

"The hype was you open and just start counting the cash, the reality is that it is a hard business with very small margins," he says. "At the same time we opened Biggie Smalls Uber Eats launched and that changed the dining landscape tenfold. The first 12 months were unbelievably hard."

The food delivery market rose by 30 per cent in 2017 and is forecast to rise from about $1.5 billion in 2017 to $4.2 billion by 2025, according to a Morgan Stanley report published in January.

Delia says Uber Eats and other delivery services such as Deliveroo and Foodora have forced restaurants to change.

"Fifty per cent of your revenue goes out the back door, we have had to be flexible and have had to be forward thinking otherwise we will go the way of the taxi driver," he says. "I can't have that, I can't fail. You have to try and find a way to be better and smarter. This is the hustle. I have always been a hustler." Read more