[Analytics] Dicing with death to deliver a meal: South Korea’s appetite and drivers

At least 86 teenagers have been killed and hundreds injured making food deliveries in South Korea in the last decade. The country has become the world’s fourth-largest food delivery market, with one platform doubling food deliveries in the last year alone. David Lee specially for the South China Morning Post.

South Korea has become the world’s fourth-largest food delivery market, worth an estimated 20 trillion Korean won (US$16.7 billion), as people increasingly turn to the convenience of searching, ordering and paying for their food all on one platform.

The proliferation of delivery apps and the rise in single-person households is fuelling the appetite for food deliveries, with the country’s biggest delivery platform Baedal Minjok doubling its deliveries in the last year alone. It made 36 million deliveries in August, translating to about 1.2 million per day.

But this comes at a cost. The death of a teenage delivery driver last year has highlighted the pressure drivers face to make deliveries as quickly as possible, often driving recklessly and ignoring traffic rules without full accident insurance to get the food delivered while still warm.

The most popular of these food deliveries is fried chicken, according to Baedal Minjok. Pizza, Chinese food and steamed pork dishes are some of the other preferred menu items for people hungry for a quick lunch or a late-night meal. Diners can even order a full Korean dinner set that includes soup, meat, rice and banchan (side dishes).

Even though most food orders are still placed through phone calls, the proportion made via delivery apps increased from 24.9 per cent in 2017 to 34.7 per cent in 2018, according to TrendMonitor.
Baedal Minjok, which started in 2011, has over 80,000 affiliated restaurants. Its operator, Woowa Brothers, became a unicorn start-up – a company worth at least US$1 billion – and Baedal Minjok’s net profit for 2018 was US$227.3 million.

Yogiyo is the second-biggest delivery app in the country, with about 60,000 affiliated restaurants. The company, which started in 2012, is aiming for 100,000 restaurants by the end of 2019.

The two apps have gained such a large share of the market that they drove international competitor UberEats out of the country in October after only two years.

As these major delivery companies expand, they are paying more attention to their drivers, who now use new motorcycles bearing the corporate colours and logo, and are required to wear a helmet on the road. But many of the restaurants that do not partner with these companies still use old and unsafe motorcycles to deliver food, and do not have strict regulations. Coupled with reckless driving by the mostly young drivers, many of them teenagers, the industry is often cast in a negative light.

“For me, they look kind of like hooligans,” says Choi Tae-il, a 30-year-old jobseeker in Paju. “When I see someone speeding on a motorcycle or making loud noises on it, it’s usually young drivers.”

Delivery drivers are under increased scrutiny from pedestrians, the police and lawmakers. There have been recent crackdowns, such as a law requiring restaurant owners to ensure their drivers have road insurance, but many of the same hazards remain.

In 2018, Kim Eun-bum died while he was making a routine food delivery run on a motorcycle in Jeju Island. The 17-year-old was on the road despite being too young to possess a driving licence. His restaurant bosses wanted him to make deliveries, despite his age. They were later fined 300,000 Korean won (US$249) for hiring a minor who was not qualified to deliver food on a motorcycle, but were not charged for his death.

According to the Korea Workers’ Compensation and Welfare Service, 86 teenagers have been killed and 4,500 injured while on delivery rounds since 2010.

“I started out by lying to my boss that I had a licence to drive a motorcycle when I was 17 years old,” says Shin Sung-sub, now a 27-year-old construction worker in Seoul.

He would work for various local restaurants with his high school classmates in the suburb city of Guri, and was paid around 250,000 Korean won (US$209) a week when he worked every day after school.

“Delivering food was better pay and more fun than other part-time jobs at the time, so I eventually got a motorcycle licence in the end.”

He recalls having about two or three near-death experiences on the road, and about three accidents, but was lucky enough not to have been seriously injured.

“There were many times when there were more than 10 orders waiting for me after getting back from a delivery, so I would try to make three to four deliveries at a time,” Shin recalls. “It was protocol for me to ignore turn signals, drive between cars and speed unnecessarily fast in narrow alleyways.”

One of the motorcycles he used was not roadworthy. “Some restaurants would have brand new motorcycles and perform periodical inspections, but my first workplace gave me a motorcycle that had a broken rear brake,” he says. “The only safety advice I got was a ‘be careful on the road’ from my boss.”

Yogiyo has prioritised road safety for its drivers and is also no longer hiring teenagers, with the starting age being 21.

“Every delivery employee receives an offline roadside education before they start hitting the road,” says Choi Hyun-jin, a representative for Yogiyo. “We also send monthly newsletters about roadside safety and host periodical visitations from the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency to emphasise conscious driving on the road.”

Nevertheless, accidents still plague the delivery industry. The Ministry of Employment and Labour reported that companies which hire delivery drivers reported more than 650 accidents between 2016 and 2019. Baedal Riders, a sister company to Baedal Minjok, had 104 cases, while Yogiyo Plus, a subsidiary of Yogiyo, had 56.

Delivery drivers also face a dilemma with insurance.

“Our drivers benefit from the industrial accident insurance provided by the company,” states Choi Hyun-jin from Yogiyo. However, this legally required insurance policy stops short of covering the majority of costs in an accident. The Transportation Ministry says only 5.7 per cent of delivery service employees are registered for insurance policies that cover injuries.

According to the union of delivery drivers, a more comprehensive insurance policy would cost a driver anywhere from 10 million Korean won (US$8,350) to 15 million Korean won (US$15,000) for a year.

Since drivers are paid about 3,500 Korean won (US$2.92) per delivery, they are pressed to work as quickly as possible. Some make as many as 11 deliveries in an hour. In addition to the “hurry, hurry” culture in the country, drivers often face complaints by customers if the food is cold by the time it arrives.

Choi Tae-il, the resident from Paju, thinks Koreans should change their expectations of delivery services. “We should be open to the idea of deliveries taking longer than just 30 minutes from the time food is prepared to when it arrives at the door.”

To address some of the unreasonable expectations considering delivery time, customers using the Baedal Minjok or Yogiyo apps receive a notification that their orders will take 40 or 50 minutes to be delivered.

In addition, there have been stories shared on social media of customers writing “no need to hurry” instead of the usual “please come fast” on the comment section for delivery drivers.

But despite that, on most days it’s still easy to spot delivery motorcycles whizzing through traffic and on pedestrian walkways to drop off a hungry customer’s order.

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