Wolt auto-approves orders as restaurant criticises queue-blind system

Food delivery service Wolt has begun automatically accepting restaurant orders and setting preparation times itself, a change that restaurant owner Jaakko Hämäläinen says ignores real-time queues, Yle reports.

Hämäläinen, the founder of Brasserie SLO Room, said the new system can tell a courier to collect an order in eight minutes even when dozens of customers are waiting at the restaurant.

The problems are particularly apparent during lunchtime, when kitchen staff are already busy. Orders are also accepted when the requested meal or one of its ingredients has run out.

Hämäläinen said the system increases waiting times for customers dining at the restaurant because preparation times cannot be adjusted to reflect the kitchen’s actual workload.

“Orders considerably slow down the kitchen’s work,” Hämäläinen said. “When a separate Wolt meal has to be prepared between orders already in the queue, the meals of everyone waiting at the tables may be delayed by 10 minutes.”

Wolt calls change a pilot

Hämäläinen said he did not recall receiving advance notice of the change. Instead, a message appeared on the restaurant’s tablet saying that orders would be handled automatically in future.

Wolt told Yle by email that the new system is a pilot being tested in fewer than 10 per cent of restaurants in Finland. The automatic acceptance process is intended to reduce restaurants’ manual work and streamline order handling.

According to Wolt, the pilot is being introduced in stages and restaurants can disable automatic acceptance if it does not work for them. The company said it was closely monitoring the pilot and feedback from restaurants while developing the system with its restaurant partners.

Foodora used a similar system

Hämäläinen said the delivery service Foodora, which ceased operations in February, also automatically accepted orders and set preparation times externally. SLO Room had already described that system as “nonsense”, he said.

Restaurants were penalised if orders were not ready by the time set by Foodora, according to Hämäläinen. He said the restaurant soon stopped using the company’s devices.

Wolt has been used at Brasserie SLO Room for six years. Hämäläinen said the restaurant did not want to end the partnership easily because a small restaurant cannot operate its own delivery service. He added that a large percentage of the order price goes to Wolt, but the restaurant cannot afford to stay out of the service.