Cut out the customer and save our waistlines, it is time for Deliverchew - Stephen Jardine

A Deliveroo rider (Photo by Dan Kitwood/Getty Images) | Getty Images

If I was the nation’s biggest online food delivery service, I would keep my head down and just count the money. Instead, this week Deliveroo revealed a list of the most ordered items from its service around the country.

I suspect the aim was approbation, to show how in just a decade the company has won a place in our hearts and our stomachs, delivering champagne to the well-to-do folks in Tunbridge Wells and oat milk to the vegan hippies in Brighton.

In reality, it was a grim glimpse into the artery clogged heart of our obesity crisis.

What started as a smart technological extension of the takeaway market, concentrating options and smoothing out delivery, has expanded as wide as the nation’s waistline.

Delve deep into the crazy fun facts revealed by Deliveroo such as Glasgow’s fondness for afternoon tea and you find some much less palatable truths.

Burgers and pizzas are the most ordered options nationwide with the number one branded item being the 8 pieces of boneless chicken from American chain Wingstop, or as they put it “classic wings, naked fried, 10 ways to get your flavour on…625 kcal”.

But the really worrying revelation in the research is just how lazy we are becoming. Having saturated the market in meals the food apps are increasingly focussing on delivering basic ingredients to our doorsteps.

From bags of crisps in London to teabags in Fife, there is nothing we are too indolent to leave to someone on a bike to fetch to our door.

My local supermarket now features a procession of delivery riders who park their electric bikes outside and congregate for a quick vape and mindless phone scroll before picking up a pint of milk and a family bar of Fruit and Nut for someone too engrossed in “Homes Under The Hammer” to get off the sofa and go to the shops.

In London new start ups have taken this to the next level with firms like Gopuff and Zappopening so-called ‘dark supermarkets’. These neighbourhood grocery stores aren’t open to the public but simply act as local distribution centres to help delivery riders get your goods to you as quickly as possible. In the clamour for business some even promise order to doortstep in just 15 minutes although it’s not clear why the need for a pint of milk and a loaf of bread will ever be that urgent.

Last weekend in a café I had to wait while an order was collected by a delivery rider who’d appeared by my side in a helmet looking like he was about to rob the place. In fact he was just picking up two bacon rolls.

What’s next? I was just thinking it won’t be long before people are sitting at home in their pants ordering coffee. Then I discovered Blackpool is the number one place in the UK for doing just that.

Siifting through all this information, I think someone is missing a trick. Deliveroo was set up to plug a gap in the market and I’ve spotted another. How about a service where the person delivering cuts out the customer and actually eats it for us to save even more time. We could even call it Deliverchew.