It could scale if there's enough people ordering food from the same geographic location to the same geographic location at around the same time.
Imagine a bunch of ghost kitchens next to each other in an industrial park, offering discounts to certain neighborhoods if they agree to order in a certain time frame.
Brazilian iFood already does this. You can order a 1.85 USD meal (with no extra fees) a day in advance. It arrives at a predefined time in a generic iFood package. I've never seen such an unappetizing dish in my life, including what I've seen children be fed in a really poor orphanage I used to volunteer in.
I really hate the distopic future we're heading into.
No. If the delivery service knows that they need to send 4 orders to a single neighbourhood, instead of sending a driver back and forth 4 times, they instead can have the restaurant prep the 4 meals at the same time and send the driver to that neighbourhood once. Pizza places do this all the time. You'll often see them with multiple delivery bags in their car.
Imagine a bunch of ghost kitchens next to each other in an industrial park, offering discounts to certain neighborhoods if they agree to order in a certain time frame.