Uber Eats has announced its plans to scrap 5,000 online-only food retailers from its app.
This crackdown is speculated to have arisen from growing concerns over the over-saturation of virtual brands, or "ghost kitchens", that offer identical menus to its parent company or another restaurant brand, eroding consumer confidence.
Uber Eats also hopes to give all of its merchants a fair opportunity at obtaining user exposure and encourage quality over quantity in its offering of food retailers.
The food delivery platform's cut of roughly 13 percent of all of its North American online storefronts will only impact virtual brands with duplicate menus and not the parent restaurants.
These delivery businesses without physical storefronts experienced significant growth during the pandemic, as many restaurants utilised their empty kitchens to test new ideas to make up for sales losses.
The food delivery platform is also currently in the process of implementing new guidelines that would ensure that more than half of a virtual brand's menu needs to be different from its parent restaurant, or another restaurant brand.
To remain on Uber Eats, virtual restaurants will also be required to list photos of five items that are unique to their menu, maintain an average rating higher than 4.3 out of 5 stars, have a 5 percent or fewer canceled orders by the merchant and maintain a low rate of inaccurate orders.
