New food ordering app Blackpool Eats aims to take on the power of the global giants in resort

Blackpool Eats has been started by a small team from Barrow with Sam Benson taking on the role in this area from his office at Lancaster House off Amy Johnson Way.

Sam said many people did not realise that the likes of Just Eat charge a huge 14-17 per cent commission to takeaways using its ordering service.

At that level, he said, many of the restaurants have to pass on the charge to customers and Sam said in any case it was a lot of money leaving the local economy to go into the pockets of the international firms.

He said the group started in Barrow in December 2018 with the aim to undercut the big names and provide a local service for a commission in the region of five per cent.

He said: "It really took off, we have thousands of businesses signed up now. In Barrow we took 12,000 orders last week alone. The idea was to spread out from there and we looked first at Blackpool and Morecambe, both being coastal towns like Barrow.

"Not only do we want to treat the takeaways more fairly, but also we want to support the community too and so we have decided to donate 100 per cent of our first week's takings to a local charity - Blackpool Food Bank.

"We noticed that a lot of takeaways working with Just Eat end up inflating their prices to cover commission charges, so it was not great for customers either.

"So our aim was to push out the huge corporations and that's what we have done in Barrow. Now we're hoping to make a real difference in Blackpool not only by allowing takeaways to keep more of the money they deserve but by reinvesting some of our profits back into the community.

"We have been going just over a week here and we have already signed up 30 businesses already.

"We have our own app and terminals, about the size of a toaster which sit on the counter of the takeaway, and these help streamline the service. The staff get a print out they can easily follow to cook the meal.

"Going forward we are hoping to employ more people here in Blackpool and continue supporting the local community. Many of the takeaways have special offers and promotions which we can support on the app."