Bananas, fries, Mexican food, margaritas among top cravings for Uber Eats customers

What’s with all the bananas? Apparently that’s what America’s been craving.

Whether it’s to make banana bread – a coronavirus pandemic favorite – or to blend them into smoothies or peel and eat as they come, the fruit has been the most popular grocery item delivered by Uber Eats over the past 12 months.

Just in September, Uber Eats delivered more than 25,150 pounds – more than 12 tons – of bananas in the U.S., according to the ridesharing company’s Uber Eats Cravings Report, released Wednesday. The report provides a snapshot of what consumers ordered from the online food and grocery delivery service over the past 12 months.

Uber Eats also delivers alcoholic beverages, which it began after its acquisition of Drizly in February 2021. The most popular orders: large margaritas, Tito’s vodka, White Claw variety packs, Josh Cellars Cabernet Sauvignon and Corona. The three cities ordering the most alcohol deliveries? Sacramento, Palm Springs and Tampa Bay.

Some other highlights from the Uber Eats Cravings Report:

• The most ordered items: French fries, pad thai, garlic naan, soda, miso soup, California Roll, chicken tikka masala, edamame, mozzarella sticks, and spicy tuna roll.
• Item on the rise: Cheese fries, a side order that increased by more than 1,234% over the past year.

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• The most popular cuisines ordered: Mexican, burgers and sandwiches, Chinese, Indian, pizza, sushi, Thai, Mediterranean, breakfast (bagels + donuts), and Vietnamese.
• Most popular time to order: For customers, weekends were the most popular days to order deliveries, with 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. the most popular time to schedule orders. The biggest order? One customer ordered $7,719.82 worth of groceries – more than 218 items.
• Special orders don’t upset Uber Eats. Extra soy sauce, extra spicy and extra gravy became more popular requests last year, while requests lessened for extra avocado, mayo, pickles and ranch dressing.
• Daily dishes. Depending on the day, customers had different special requests. On Monday, customers were more likely to say “No,” to sour cream, onions, and tomatoes. Tuesday: extra sauce. Wednesday: No tomatoes. Thursdays: Extra sauce and spice. Friday: No onions, add french fries. Saturday: Hold the pickle. Sunday: Extra spice and crispy dishes.
• Super special requests. Uber Eats shared some unique customer requests including this one about a pulled pork sandwich: “If you could please thoroughly saturate the pulled pork with the barbecue sauce — I just want to make sure that the pulled pork is fully covered in barbecue sauce, as opposed to just putting unsauced meat on the bun and then some barbecue sauce on the top.”

Then there was the customer who wanted to be punished with heat: “Let’s give this a try tonight please. I like hot & spicy !! Make me cry 😢 🥵 Hot!!! Please make me hurt. Make extra extra extra burning super super hot and spicy!!! 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥 Make it so spicy you would not even eat soooooo spicy.”

And, speaking to the range of requests from Uber Eats, one customer noted: “Important: side of rainbow sprinkles,” while another said, “I just really need a phillips head screwdriver.”

During the COVID-19 shutdown, Uber acquired food delivery service Postmates in June 2020 in a $2.5 billion stock deal and began grocery delivery in July 2020. Uber Eats now has more than 1,000 active grocery stores participating in its service.

Uber’s delivery business posted revenue of $12.9 billion in the second quarter of 2021, up 75% from a year ago.

Read more at usatoday.com