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There’s another workplace lunch delivery service now available in Seattle.

It comes from Munchery, the San Francisco-based company that first launched its dinner delivery service in Seattle more than two years ago.

Munchery CEO Tri Tran. Photo via Munchery.
Munchery CEO Tri Tran. Photo via Munchery.

The company, which raised an $85 million Series C round in May 2015, is now challenging the likes of tech giant Amazon and startup Peach with a new corporate lunch delivery program available today in Seattle, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and New York City. The idea is to help startups and large companies alike offer their employees an easy way to grab lunch.

The new program is an extension of Munchery’s existing @Work program, which already delivers dinner to more than 50 companies.

To order lunch via the new service, Munchery lets employees place individual orders through a company account. Office managers can also submit orders for multiple people. The meals are delivered in individual packages and all at once; the food is chilled so employees can eat at their convenience.

Entrees range between about $7-to-$10, and companies have the option to subsidize part or all of employees’ orders.

The food itself is made in Munchery’s own industrial kitchens, where local chefs prepare new meals each day. That’s one key difference for Munchery as it competes with a bevy of other meal delivery companies — it makes all the food itself, rather than delivering food cooked by other restaurants.

Munchery CEO Tri Tran told GeekWire that lunch demand has been high from existing customers.

“We’ve been testing this corporate dinner program for years now and based on feedback from our customers, we knew that lunch was another way we could improve their dining experiences,” he noted.

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The service will compete directly with Peach, a Seattle-based startup that employs around 40 people and raised $11 million over the past two years to build its own corporate lunch delivery platform.

There’s also Amazon, which launched its Daily Dish service for Prime members in July, allowing employees at specific companies order lunch specials for delivery to their offices.

Asked how Munchery plans to differentiate, Tran said Munchery’s diverse menu options “sets out to customize the typically rigid delivered corporate lunch.”

“Unlike Peach and Amazon, Munchery is a fully-integrated food company, not a platform or service for restaurant food to be delivered,” he added. “Our meals are delivered chilled and are crafted specifically to be reheated to avoid lukewarm temperatures or mushiness.”

However, while Peach and Amazon let employees order food in the morning before lunch time, Munchery customers are required to submit their orders by midnight on the night before delivery.

Munchery also differentiates by delivering to any office; Peach and Amazon deliver to a specific list of office buildings.

Beyond Peach and Amazon, there are plenty of other corporate food delivery options across the U.S., from ZeroCater to GrubHub to Zesty. Many tech companies also cater meals or make food in-house for employees, too.

Tran said Seattle has been a core market for Munchery, which now delivers in 12 states and recently launched a new membership program and a new meal-kit service. It’s one of many food delivery companies operating in Seattle; others include Caviar, Postmates, Bitesquad, Uber (UberEATS), Seamless, GrubHub, Yelp-owned Eat 24, and more.

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