Gorillas leaves Italy. The latest leak from the home shopping app
After halving its workforce and closing in Belgium, Gorillas has announced that it will also close in Italy. The German startup that offers food deliveries arrived in our country only a year ago
Gorillas leaves Italy and initiates the dismissal of Italian employees.
The German food delivery app was present in our present in 5 cities: Rome, Turin, Milan, Florence and Bergamo. "Here he employed 540 people, of which 75 permanent contracts (including two managers) for which he initiated the procedure for collective dismissal", union sources confirm to Italian Tech .
Founded in 2020, the startup shifted focus from rapid expansion to making a profit after the business boost provided by the Covid pandemic restrictions wore off. "Home shopping is no longer such a pressing need" underlines Il Sole 24 Ore.
Gorillas then began reviewing its operations in Belgium, Denmark, Italy and Spain, markets considered no longer profitable.
The German food delivery app had already announced the closure of its warehouses in Belgium and the possibility of cutting jobs in Spain.
Already last month, the grocery delivery platform laid off half of its employees at its Berlin location. On that occasion, he said in a statement that he was firing some 300 employees from a "global office workforce" of 600.
After raising $ 1 billion last October from investors (including meal delivery company Delivery Hero), CEO Kagan Sumer acknowledged that the company is struggling to raise capital.
All the details.
ESCAPE FROM ITALY FOR GORILLAS
Gorillas leaves the Italian market, where it had arrived just over a year ago.
"As regards our presence in Italy – writes Gorillas in a note -, we have evaluated and are still carefully evaluating various strategic and financial alternatives, such as the sale of a company or the entry of new investors".
"However, to date, no negotiations have been concluded positively and there are currently no negotiations at a level of concreteness that would suggest a good outcome" adds the company.
Therefore, Gorillas has “decided to start a gradual process of closing the business in Italy. We have already closed three of our warehouses in the cities of Milan, Rome and Bergamo, while the other warehouses in the country will be closed in the coming weeks. Until then, and while stocks last, we will continue to guarantee the home shopping service to our customers ".
COLLECTIVE DISMISSAL FOR THE 50 ITALIAN EMPLOYEES
"This decision has important implications for our Italian team" Gorillas adds in the note, informing that "we have started the procedures required by law and collective union consultation agreements, preparatory to the dismissal of the entire workforce".
THE STRATEGY OF GORILLAS
The company recently planned to focus more on five markets that account for 90% of its revenues: the United Kingdom, the United States, Germany, France and the Netherlands.
“We realized that, ok, we have to adapt, correct the course and we have to do it quickly, so there have been really tough decisions and now the whole focus is actually on profitability,” said Ugur Samut, co-founder and chair at the Consumer Goods Forum Global Summit Conference.
Therefore, the company has begun to review operations in the other markets in which it is active: Belgium, Denmark, Italy and Spain.
Therefore, after the announcements relating to Spain and Belgium, maneuvers were also expected for Denmark and Italy.
A SECTOR IN POST-PANDEMIC CRISIS
As Reuters recalled, the food delivery industry is facing a period of adjustment after rapid growth during the Covid pandemic. Turkish app Getir and Britain's Zapp also said they were cutting staff, while Germany's Flink slowed hiring.
THE ANGER OF THE UNION
Returning to the provision for the Italian market, the union's reaction lasts.
“Gorillas, like the other food delivery companies, have agreed to apply the national collective agreement for logistics workers to their deliverymen,” recalls Repubblica .
“This episode re-proposes the debate on how these food delivery platforms are established in our country in the absence of clear and defined rules that protect female workers. We are sure that the Ministry of Labor will take an interest in the matter, therefore, in the next few days, we will ask Minister Orlando for an official meeting to address the unfortunate issue "reads the note from Fit-Cisl, the trade union with which Gorillas signed last April. the agreement to frame the riders with the national labor contract of the logistics sector.
"Having said that, we hope that Gorillas will have an industrious repentance and on July 4th, instead of starting the collective dismissal procedures with the liquidation of the company, which would cause great damage to the staff employed and families, open a negotiating table with the union to explore all alternative possibilities, so that the employment levels and income of 540 people are safeguarded ”concludes the note from the Fit-Cisl.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/economia-on-demand/gorillas-abbandona-italia-lultima-fuga-dellapp-per-la-spesa-a-domicilio/ on Tue, 05 Jul 2022 09:03:33 +0000.