The Finnish Hospitality Association MaRa has said that it will file an official complaint with the Finnish Competition and Consumer Authority (KKV) regarding food delivery company Wolt's pricing.
According to MaRa, Wolt currently holds a dominant position in the food delivery market, which enables it to control prices and dictate the terms and conditions of contracts without fear of losing customers to competitors.
The hospitality union said that it will request KKV conduct an inquiry into whether Wolt is breaking current laws concerning competitive pricing.
According to Veli-Matti Aittoniemi, deputy chief executive at MaRa, Wolt includes a condition in its contracts with restaurants which require them to charge the same price for a meal whether the customer eats it at the restaurant or has it delivered to their home.
This means that restaurants are not able to charge customers for home delivery and have to pay an additional fee to Wolt for transportation.
"We want the authorities to clarify whether a company like Wolt, which has such a large share of the market, can impose a condition like this. That's all we want to know," Aittoniemi said.
A study conducted by MaRa allegedly found that Wolt currently holds a 42 percent share of the food delivery market in Finland, and accounts for 55 percent of the market in the Helsinki metropolitan area.
The hospitality association reportedly plans to submit its request to KKV at the end of the year.
The complaint only concerns Wolt and does not include competitors such as Foodora, as Wolt employs exceptionally strict terms for restaurants in its contracts, according to Aittoniemi.
According to MaRa, some restaurants do not see any profit from food orders delivered by Wolt.
"Wolt's commission can go up to 30 percent. In such cases there may be no return at all, that is, no profit [for restaurants]," Aittoniemi stated.
He believes that the Covid-19 crisis, which has hit the hospitality industry particularly hard, has driven restaurants to take desperate measures.
"For many restaurants, the situation could have been so dire that they were forced to agree to these contracts to keep their business running and workers employed," Aittoniemi said.
Wolt's high pricing has been discussed in the industry for years, with the terms of its contracts causing concern particularly for smaller restaurants, MaRa added.
Wolt has said that the terms and conditions included in its contracts with restaurants are legal.
"In our view, the terms of our contracts and our practices are naturally legal and are also in line with protecting the interests of customers," Henrik Pankakoski, Wolt's general manager for Finland, stated in an email to Yle.
The company confirmed that its contracts with restaurants require the same price to be charged for dine-in meals and home delivery. However, restaurants are allegedly able to set the prices themselves.
Wolt claims that its single price policy enables transparency and keeps things simple for customers.
"It is a practice that keeps the process simple, clear and transparent and hopefully evokes trust in all of Wolt's customers," Pankakoski said.
The company has reportedly conducted experiments which entailed allowing restaurants in Finland to charge extra for meals that were delivered (higher than the price listed on the menu), and found that orders for food from these restaurants dropped significantly on the app.
Wolt has said that it is willing to discuss the implications of its dominant market position with the competition authority if required.
"In general, we would say that the customer has several means of purchasing food, and Wolt still accounts for a small share of food sales in Finland," Pankakoski stated.
TetraSys Oy.