App allows UMD students to get food delivered from College Park eateries

Envoy

With a new app available at the University of Maryland, students will no longer need to look far to get a quick meal delivery.

EnvoyNow, an app that allows students on college campuses to place delivery orders at nearby restaurants, launched at this university Oct. 11. 

After the app user makes a food request, another student, called an “Envoy,” picks it up and delivers it to any location on campus via car, skateboard, bike or on foot.

“Students download EnvoyNow from the app store and create an account with their UMD email address. From there, students select one of four restaurants: Chipotle, SweetGreen, NuVegan or Blaze Pizza,” Jason Queen, this university’s strategic partnership manager at EnvoyNow, wrote in an email. 

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Because the app is new to the campus, there are only a few options to choose from. But more will be coming soon, Queen added.

Four students at the University of Southern California launched the app in April 2014. They recognized the demand for fast delivery on college campuses and created this app so food can be delivered anywhere at any time — including in lecture halls and dorms, according to a USA Today College report.

Within a few months, the business spread to multiple campuses, such as the University of Wisconsin and Indiana University, according to the story.

There are about 20 Envoys who work for the app at this university, and Queen said business is going well so far. 

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“Business has been booming the last two and half weeks,” Queen wrote in an email two and half weeks after the app’s launch. “The team and I couldn’t be happier with our progress thus far.”

The company is still in its early stages, however, and has gotten some complaints regarding its delivery time and options available, Queen said. But the suggestions and feedback are always welcome, he added, and anyone can drop an email to the company expressing what they would like to see differently. 

“Our campus is benefitting on three fronts,” he wrote. “Students get delicious food from their favorite restaurants delivered to them wherever they are, we provide jobs with impressive salaries to students, and we provide increased access to the restaurants to reach students that they did not previously have.”

Queen emphasized how this app is beneficial on the delivery end, as well as the receiver’s end. Envoys pick their own hours, deliver to friends and classmates and have a salary of about $15 to $20 an hour, he said. 

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“I love my job, I mean how much more could you ask for?” said Evans Sarker, a freshman computer science major who also works as an Envoy. “Going around campus and delivering food to fellow classmates and peers, getting to know more people and make money at the same time.”

After students receive a delivery, they can rate the service on the app. 

“Any delivery company on a college campus is going to do well,” said Madelyn de Manincor, a sophomore communication major. 

As a student startup company, EnvoyNow’s possibilities for growth could be endless, Queen said, and he would like to start partnering with more restaurants so students start to look at it as the “go-to” delivery service.