3 Best Food Delivery Apps in Thailand

Certainly the commonly-seen street vendors have dwindled in numbers due to various stop/start closures and restrictions and the 7-Eleven chains undercutting or out-competing them. Aside from that though, the main underlying factor of current trends is that pretty much everyone started using applications, or ‘apps.’

And as it turns out, consumers in Thailand soon found themselves loving the fingertip-ready convenience of food delivery apps more than they could have imagined. This is even true, to the point where many people are now happy to forgo venturing out altogether—bypassing the integral social eating habits that characterized the culture previously.

So the pre-ordered variety of food that gets delivered straight to your door without you having to do so much as key in a few details is very much the new normal in Thailand.

A few very clear leaders in the market emerged early on in the game, and the top 3 food delivery apps in Thailand are Grab Food (as in Grab the transport app), Foodpanda, and Lineman. Let’s take a closer look at what they are all about.

Welcome to the Land of…the Green Jackets

It may be first worth pointing out that the new version of Thailand seems to be one whereby there are now more Grab delivery drivers (identifiable from their green jackets with Grab logo) waiting in or outside restaurants than there are actual customers dining!

And the green high-profile jackets give a very clear indication as to which brand is leading the way in this market. Apparently green is quite a popular color these days for competing brands to adopt, although some of them have come and gone like the wind, regardless of jacket colors.

Grab Food

So Grab Food is a derivative of the hugely-successful transportation app (Grab Taxi) that soon monopolized Thailand’s ride-hailing market after seeing off its main competitor Uber. Grab was the first and original green-jacketed motorcycle taxi or delivery rider in Thailand although there have since been many attempts to mimic its style and success.

The Grab Food line was by no means the first on the scene though and didn’t actually come into being until 2018, five years after the introduction of the transport app. Clearly it has also been a huge success though, and the app is easy enough to use, offering a very broad selection of food ordering options.

Grab Food has already proved itself in terms of reliability with most consumers in the country, and it manages to maintain its popularity with well-thought-out add-ons, promotions, and other sweeteners.

The Grab menu features something like 20,000 different restaurants to choose from with options ranging from street food and fast food chains to high-end dining. The forward-thinking minds behind the Grab app were sure to include international food options as well as promo codes, discounts, and a rewards system which the Thais love.

Possibly one of the app’s main selling points is the range in type of restaurants covered, which includes main of the hugely-popular street food restaurants that some of the other apps don’t tend to deal with.

It’s not Rocket Science

The application itself, certainly by Thailand’s standards, is easy-to-use and functional once you have downloaded it. It’s also innovative, and under constant development. This means customers get calculated waiting times before even ordering, as well as a breakdown of all food prices and charges, and real-time tracking of the driver.

Direct contact with the driver is possible and there is a strong likelihood that he will call you for directions or just to tell you he has arrived (which will be in Thai—English-speaking delivery drivers are still a long way in the future here). This function also gives you the flexibility to amend an address or some other detail assuming you have a Thai speaker to hand.

How to Order Using the Grab Food App

1.      From the Grab app, choose ‘Food’ from the product selection

2.      Add your delivery address if this is your first time using the app (which gets stored)

3.      Select the restaurant of your choice

4.      Select the contents of the meal and add to your basket

5.      Tap the ‘Place Order’ button to complete the process

Once you’ve placed the order, Grab connects you to the delivery rider, who will then proceed to the restaurant (where he may well have to line up) and place your food order. He will then wait for it and deliver it to your address in real-time.

You might find the odd glitch here and there with the app—like it suddenly closing for no apparent reason or the screen freezing. These occurrences are not common though and the Singapore-based Grab is definitely one of the better apps in Thailand, which is reflected in its popularity.

Now—one of those ‘glitches’ that I mentioned earlier in relation to the Grab Food App is often something to do with the driver. The driver is not allowed to cancel once he has accepted the delivery—and yet he may well cancel if he doesn’t like the look of the traffic or can’t find the place.

Again this is not that common an occurrence but it does happen—even though this is supposed to seriously affect the driver’s rating. It’s just another one of those things to keep in mind when in Thailand.

In terms of user-friendliness though, it’s still best to remember that you are in a non-English-speaking foreign country when ordering. It’s also highly likely that some restaurants won’t have any menus in English but that’s to be expected to some degree.

• Coverage: Grab Food’s service covers around 60 provinces with all the major cities and areas in the central, northern, north-eastern, eastern, western, and southern regions being serviced. You can see the full list of coverage HERE.
• Delivery Charges and Payment Methods: The delivery charge varies according to the distance but it’s usually pretty reasonable. Digital and Cash payment methods are accepted—GrabPay Wallet and cash on delivery (COD)
• Downsides: Something called a small order fee of 20 baht is applied to orders less than the minimum order value of 80 baht. If you add more items the fee is removed. Drivers canceling your order when you’ve already been waiting 30 mins is another major negative that needs to be addressed more fully as it is not supposed to happen.

Foodpanda

Foodpanda was established way before Grab Food came on the scene. The app was launched in Thailand back in 2012 and soon became one of the major players in the food delivery market. The main difference between GrabFood and Foodpanda lies with the fact that the latter’s business is related solely to the delivery of food.

Foodpanda’s origins lie with a multinational online food delivery service based in Berlin known as Delivery Hero. In 2020 the company declared that it had achieved nationwide coverage in Thailand and was now servicing all 77 provinces in the country.

The website claims the services of some 70,000 restaurants are offered via the app, all of which contain customer reviews for easy referencing before ordering. I’m not sure if anyone has counted them but Foodpanda does have an exhaustive list of restaurants from which you can order your favorite dishes, much more so than Grab.

And if all of this sounds massively in favor of Foodpanda—it is—but Grab certainly did a fantastic job of ensuring the company didn’t rest on its laurels or get too complacent about its success after doubling-up on the food delivery services.

Although they do cover a few street restaurant-style options, most of the restaurants covered by Food Panda veer a bit more towards the more semi-formal and formal side of things, catering to both Thai and International tastes.

The restaurants featured on Foodpanda have previous reviews to refer to, which usually provide insights into an establishment’s quality and services that may help with any decision to order from them or not.

If you download the app you’ll find that grocery services have now also been added to the roster a la Grab Food. Once you set up your account you’ll enjoy features like FoodPanda remembering your previous orders and any preferences that you tend to have. On top of that you can link to multiple addresses so it’s easy to be lazy time and time again.

The app itself is user-friendly with a well-organized homepage with categories and easy-to-navigate menus typically provided in both Thai and English.

How to Order Using the Foodpanda App

1. Enter your location/address if using it for the first time. The address will be stored for future use
2. Search restaurants by name or look for a specific type of cuisine—use the name of a dish or any other keywords
3. Choose a featured restaurant in your area
4. Select the food items you wish to order
5. Proceed to checkout. Be sure you have entered your exact delivery address, preferred payment method, and phone number

After placing your order, Foodpanda forwards it to the restaurant, which then starts preparing your food. The delivery person will then be directed to pick up the completed order at the restaurant and deliver it to you directly.

Users of the app unsure on what to order may find some of the tips on Foodpanda useful like some of the options below suggested by the app:

• ‘Hit List of Restaurants’
• ‘Trending on Foodpanda’
• ‘Fast Delivery’.

Recommendations on popular or and best-selling dishes in your area may be made, some on past purchases. You can also navigate a ‘Your Restaurants’ section on the app to make re-ordering from your favorite eateries much easier.

• Coverage: is listed HERE as 77 cities and provinces across Thailand (does anyone actually know the difference between a city and a province here?). All the main regions like Bangkok, Pattaya, Phuket, Hua Hin, and Chiang Rai, etc. are covered along with quite a few more remote or lesser-known spots.
• Delivery Charges and Payment Methods: Delivery is free with a minimum spend of 50 Baht, and payment is available by Paypal, debit card, credit card, and C.O.D.
• Positives: Delivery is pretty fast by Thai standards and is free with a minimum order of 50 Baht.
• Downsides: It can be a little tougher to get in touch with the delivery driver than with a Grab driver. Expect this to be the case if they get lost. The other option is contacting customer service, which unfortunately means waiting time up to 20 minutes. Grab claims to be the fastest food delivery service in the market and this may just be true.

LineMan food delivery service

Line is the main messaging service app used by Thais. On top of its many existing services, in 2016 the company decided to launch a door-to-door delivery app in partnership with Lalamove, a well-known Thai logistics company.

It is the motorcycle of the logistics company that are used to make deliveries around the city. The app covers food orders, grocery deliveries from local convenience stores, and express parcels.

And as it turns out, Lineman has easily the greatest overall selection from the top 3 food delivery apps. The company is partnered with something like 100,000 restaurants, and when you consider that they operate 24/7 with no restriction on distance restrictions, you might well wonder why Lineman is not at the top of the chain, so to speak.

Well that’s simple. In Asia economics rule and the fact that Lineman only reaches the top 3 is a reflection of the price of delivery. That’s to say it’s a tad more on the pricey side than the others, despite the obvious other selling points.

LINE Man was developed in Thailand for Thai people, and thus claims to understand the needs of its customer base better than its competitors. Certainly this brand has become one of the fastest-growing services here of recent years, bolstered by its mission to elevate the standard of Thai street food and SMEs.

The process is communicative enough though as customers find themselves notified and updated throughout the entirety of the order, from when the driver picks it up to when it is delivered. Drivers may call often with updates, which can be confusing if you are a non-Thai speaker and may leave you wondering whether your food is actually on its way or not.

The customer service team seems reasonably well geared-up to look into queries and yes there is an English option. Unfortunately for foreigners though there are still a lot of menus only in Thai—but when you consider the sheer number of choices offered by Lineman it shouldn’t be too difficult to find something.

Lineman doesn’t make any bold claims about being the fastest in the game or anything and delivery times tend to vary according to various factors like the distance of the restaurant, the time of day, and traffic conditions etc.

If you download the app you will see it is another multi-functional interface also covering shopping and transportation. The intuitive user-interface features a decent navigation system that allows real-time tracking of orders.

Ordering Food with the Lineman App

1.   Login using your LINE ID

2.   Select the desired service

3.   Select either location or restaurant to bring up the list for your area

4.   Select items required and add to basket

5.   Proceed to checkout and confirm order and price—ensure you have entered your exact delivery address, preferred payment method, and phone number

As this is a Thai app designed for Thai people, it may not be the most user-friendly of the three with that in mind. The thing is, with Lineman you are likely to get lots of contact from the driver, initially with a call to confirm your order.

Of course if you respond in English there is every chance the likelihood of communication will diminish, but generally these drivers have lists to check. You may be asked to confirm the total price on your screen for clarification purposes, and if there is any problem with the address or traffic conditions you may even get another call. All part of the experience.

• Service coverage: The app offers food delivery services to all 77 provinces across Thailand, including all major spots like Bangkok, Pattaya, and Chiang Mai.
• Delivery from: There is a special fee of 10 Baht for deliveries within a distance of 6 kilometers. Typically delivery starts at 55 Baht, with an additional charge of 9 Baht per kilometer beyond that. Orders placed between midnight and 7:00 am incur an additional 100 Baht.
• Payment methods: E-wallet, debit card, and credit card are listed as accepted methods of payment but you may find most of the restaurants featured on the Lineman app only take cash, which is considered a downside by many
• Other Downsides: The menu on Lineman is definitely not as well-organized as the other popular apps as the information is derived from crowd-sourcing. At least a basic level of Thai is realistically required for the use of this app to avoid running the risk of the whole affair turning into comedy.

The Bottom Line

Although food delivery has long been available via telephone in Thailand, with the development of the current crop of food delivery apps things have escalated in ways you couldn’t have imagined 10 years or so back. Telephone orders sometimes arrived after 2 hours. Imagine the condition. So it’s safe to say Things have improved considerably on the food delivery front in Thailand in the last decade, and continue to do so at a rapid pace.

Consumers in Thailand these days are increasingly relying on apps for the order and delivery of their meals. For many it could prove a challenge to even imagine life without their favorite food delivery service. It’s a tough one once you get to experience the ease and occasional uniqueness of using the top 3 food delivery apps in Thailand!