DG Cars’ delivery business growth helps Nottingham taxi firm take on drivers during Covid-19 lockdown

DG delivery

DG Delivery, Nottingham private hire giant DG Cars’ takeaway food delivery business, has now signed up more than 160 restaurants across Nottingham and Derby – and helped the company buck the trend of driver losses by recruiting 175 new drivers during the pandemic.

The business, launched during the first lockdown in April 2020, has helped local restaurants stay afloat during the pandemic and provided the firm’s taxi drivers with a new source of jobs. The initiative has been such a success that around 3,000 delivery jobs are now being passed through to drivers each week.

Restaurant customers simply order online or over the phone. The delivery element is then entered into Delivery Point, a technology platform developed by Autocab, which allocates the work to local DG Cars drivers.

Instead of losing drivers during lockdown, the new service has enabled DG Cars to take on an additional 175 drivers. The taxi firm is now planning to extend the service to the retail sector, to help them get goods out to customers.

Omair Javaid, Director at DG Cars, said: “In a difficult economic climate, this has been a fantastic way for us to support local businesses and connect the community. “It has also opened up doors for our business – it’s enabled us to provide a new opportunity to our drivers, who have been struggling due to the lack of traditional passenger and corporate work.”

He added: “We plan to continue rolling out the service in the months to come. Many vulnerable people are currently relying on deliveries, so the more businesses we can work with, the better for them in terms of the options they have available.”

Ryan Schofield, head of internal business development at Chao Chao, a franchise takeaway with sites in Arnold and West Bridgford, which has been using DG’s delivery service, said: “Working with DG has solved many problems for us – we were struggling to find enough drivers to fulfil our orders during busy periods. With access to a huge network of drivers, we now know orders will be collected quickly and will arrive with our customers as fresh as it did when it left our premises.”