During the last years, the number of digital platforms offering allegedly environmental sustainable last-mile logistics services has been increasing fast all over the world. Their size and geographical spread are growing leaps and bounds. Some studies suggest that they are still operating at losses and relying on venture capital to carry on growing. In this paper we employ real-life data gathered from the largest food delivery platforms (Just Eat, Glovo, and Deliveroo) operating in the city of Barcelona (Spain) to analyse the profitability of these business models. We develop a Monte Carlo simulation model with several scenarios to estimate how many orders are needed to reach economic profitability. Using this simulation model, a second model based on multiple linear regression is built to investigate the relationship between ‘the minimum number of orders required to reach profitability’ and several independent variables, such as the share of the total purchase order or the delivery time-distance. The potential use of this tool for managers is discussed, and several lines of future research on the economical profitability of food delivery operations are highlighted.

在过去的几年中，提供所谓的环境可持续的最后一英里物流服务的数字平台的数量在全世界范围内都在快速增长。它们的规模和地理分布正在突飞猛进。一些研究表明，他们仍然处于亏损状态，并且依靠风险资本来进行增长。在本文中，我们使用从在西班牙巴塞罗那市运营的最大的食品配送平台（Just Eat，Glovo和Deliveroo）收集的真实数据来分析这些业务模型的盈利能力。我们使用几种方案开发了蒙特卡洛模拟模型，以估算需要多少订单才能实现经济盈利。使用此仿真模型，建立了基于多元线性回归的第二个模型，以研究“达到盈利能力所需的最小订单数”与几个独立变量（例如，总采购订单的份额或交货时间-距离）之间的关系。讨论了该工具在管理人员中的潜在用途，并着重指出了未来有关食品配送业务的经济收益性的几项研究。