Uber Technologies (UBER) – Get Report has launched a feature of its Uber Eats food delivery app to enable U.S. and Canadian customers for the rest of the year to order from black-owned restaurants with free delivery.
Shares of the San Francisco ride-sharing and food-delivery company at last check were up 2.9% to $37.50.
The feature responds to nationwide protests about the death of George Floyd, an African-American man who was killed while in police custody in in Minneapolis.
Customers who open the Uber Eats app in major U.S. and Canadian cities will see a banner reading: “Support Black-owned restaurants.”
They’re provided with a list of nearby restaurants. Delivery fees for those orders are being waived until the end of the year, the company said.
Uber employees had compiled the restaurant list based on publicly available sources and with input from local organizations and business associations.
The company said the new food-delivery feature is a response to requests from customers.
Chief Executive Dara Khosrowshahi said in a Thursday email to U.S. customers that Uber in coming weeks would offer discounted ride-hailing trips to black-owned small businesses that have been affected by the coronavirus pandemic, Reuters reported.
Khosrowshahi also committed to making the company more diverse internally. In 2019, some 45% of Uber’s U.S. employees were white, 33% Asian, 9% black and 8% Hispanic, a company report showed.
On Wednesday, Khosrowshahi said that while Uber’s global rides business is still down 70% from a year ago, Uber Eats had more than doubled year-over-year as of May.
Food delivery broadly has benefited from the coronavirus pandemic as consumers have stayed home during government-imposed lockdowns.
*by ROB LENIHAN via The Street*
