Peepl aims at decentralizing food delivery by using the Fuse technology for payments, rewards and governance. It has secured support from the Combined Authority of the Liverpool City Region whose Mayor has announced a £700,000 investment in the project and its ecosystem.
The food delivery industry has been a major component of the rapidly growing sharing economy. It gained even more importance during the Coronavirus pandemic when most restaurants were only allowed to serve takeaway orders for long stretches.
However, as of today, food delivery is dominated by large platforms like Deliveroo and UberEats that set highly extractive fees on each transaction between a customer and independent restaurants that they serve as an intermediary for. For instance, the Deliveroo fees for local restaurants can be as high as 35%, which can make it a struggle for smaller establishments to remain afloat. Environmental, social, and governance (ESG) issues are also rampant within the industry and considered to be at the heart of Deliveroo’s IPO failure back in April quoted as “the worst IPO in London’s history.”
Blockchain technology promises to end the restaurants’ and grocers’ dependence on large centralized delivery platforms. It enables customers to pay them directly in a transparent and rapid manner. The team behind the Fuse ecosystem project Peepl has recognized the potential opportunity and chosen Fuse technology to pursue it.
Transforming the food delivery industry using the Fuse tech
Peepl is a Liverpool-based project that is developing a decentralized, Fuse-powered platform to disrupt the food delivery industry. It is aiming to empower local restaurants in the areas it operates in, bring the food delivery industry closer to the community-centric values and boost its sustainability.
On the tech side, Peepl is building a platform that will allow the creation of Peepl-native apps enabling partner restaurants to interact with their customers. Peepl’s partners will also be able to build their own apps on top of the platform or use Peepl’s payments and rewards functionalities in their existing apps.
With regard to payments, the Peepl team is looking into integrating stablecoins as one of the methods. As a participant in the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority’s Sandbox program, Peepl is working to implement crypto payments in a compliant manner from the get-go.
Peepl estimates that restaurants using its services will be able to save up to 50% on what it costs them to serve their customers via the likes of Deliveroo. Besides Liverpool, it is already making inroads among restaurants in London, Manchester and Milan, with partners expected to also line up in other locations soon.
To boost sustainability, Peepl-powered deliveries in the Liverpool region will be operated by six low-carbon logistics hubs one in each of the six city region local authority areas.
The PPL Token
Peepl’s utility token called PPL will be issued on the Fuse Network blockchain using the Fuse Studio platform for creating and managing token-based communities. The token is set to be used to reward customers for purchases made within the Peepl ecosystem. They will receive 5–10% of the order value in PPL tokens back to their wallets.
At the initial stage, PPL’s price will be fixed until 2025 and it will only be usable for payment for repeat purchases and services within the Peepl ecosystem. This will ensure the token remains in circulation within the local economies it supports and help promote customer retention.
PPL holders will also in the future be able to participate in the community-run governance of the Peepl platform.
Liverpool City Region Announces Funding for Peepl
In a major boost for Peepl, on November 1, Steve Rotheram, Metro Mayor of the Liverpool City Region announced an investment of £700,000 to be made in the Peepl project. He emphasized Peepl’s transformative potential and the need to bring the food delivery industry closer to the community empowerment values:
In the Liverpool City Region, we aren’t the sort to simply follow the crowd. We like to be disrupters; to chart our own course and take great pride in our local businesses and community solidarity.
Peepl has the potential to radically disrupt the food delivery market by bringing together all those values and injecting a lot more fairness — for riders and restaurants alike — to an industry not known for its treatment of workers.
Of the investment amount, £500k will be allocated to the project itself, while the rest will fund ecosystem development through ‘kickstarter’ grants to participating restaurants.
The Fuse team is thrilled by the progress being made by a major real world use-focused ecosystem project, and we are looking forward to seeing it transform an important sector of the economy.
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