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Aramark buys campus dining competitor with app-based food delivery service

The acquisition is expected to complement Aramark's large campus dining operations, which operate on more than 400 U.S. campuses.

Aramark Global Headquarters (front) at 2400 Market St. and the skyline of Center City Philadelphia April 29, 2019. Includes the Comcast Technology Center, Comcast Center, PECO building and Liberty Place.
Aramark Global Headquarters (front) at 2400 Market St. and the skyline of Center City Philadelphia April 29, 2019. Includes the Comcast Technology Center, Comcast Center, PECO building and Liberty Place.Read moreTOM GRALISH / Staff Photographer

Aramark, one of the largest providers of food and other services to businesses, said it acquired Good Uncle, a campus dining competitor founded at Syracuse University in 2016. The price was not disclosed.

The Philadelphia company described Good Uncle as “an innovative, app-based on-demand food delivery service that brings freshly prepared, restaurant-quality meals to conveniently located pickup points around college campuses.”

Good Uncle’s original plan was to have mobile kitchens at each campus, including the University of Delaware in Newark, but the Review, the campus’ student newspaper, reported in March that the company had pulled back from that plan in favor of a central food-preparation site in Delaware.

“The food is prepared for delivery in the Delaware location and then brought to the other four campuses: Lehigh University, University of Maryland, Colgate University and Syracuse University. Once a student orders a dish, through the app, the driver will then prepare the food and deliver to the drop-off location,” the publication said.

Aramark said Good Uncle’s meals are delivered fresh and on demand because the company’s vehicles are equipped with refrigeration and ovens and stocked with a day’s worth of inventory. The meals are finished in the delivery vehicle, Aramark said.

Good Uncle — whose CEO, Wiley Cerilli, described the company last year as “the anti-cafeteria plan” — will operate independently. Aramark did not say how many campuses the food-delivery app serves. The “plan is for Good Uncle to be available on a handful of campuses this fall,” a spokesperson said.

Aramark shares closed up 4.7% to $36.52 on the New York Stock Exchange. The company also released earnings highlighted by strong revenue gains in its international operations. Overall, its revenue climbed 1% to $4.01 billion from $3.97 billion in the three months ended June 28, compared with the same period last year.

Its overall operating income also climbed 1%, to $189 million from $187 million, in the third quarter.