Grab helps users find new food spots for their next dinner out
The app’s 5-star badge has become a trusted marker for users seeking high-quality dining.
From just a food delivery service, Grab has evolved into an app that lets users discover new restaurants, pre-purchase deals, and even pre-order food for later, all to enhance the consumer’s dining experience.
“From 2022 onwards, what we started to see was that the time spent on our platform was actually increasing,” Justin Halim, regional head of managed enterprise business at Grab Holdings, Inc., told the QSR Media Asia TabSquare Conferences & Awards 2025 in Singapore.
“People on our platform were spending, on average, 17 minutes just thumbing through Grab, figuring out what they wanted to eat,” he added.
GrabFood, which started as a delivery service in Singapore in May 2018, has become a discovery tool, one that influences consumer decisions even before they step into a restaurant.
“The majority of users say it’s very important and that they prefer brands and restaurants with a strong, tightly integrated online-to-offline experience,” Halim said. With this in mind, Grab started adding features focused on food discovery.
To guide users, Grab launched the 5-Star Food Merchant Program, curating top-tier restaurants and food spots across Southeast Asia. The 5-star badge quickly became a trusted marker for users seeking reliable, high-quality dining.
Halim recalled a personal experience where his family, despite their “health-conscious selves,” ended up buying cakes from Chalk Farm at Paragon Shopping Centre after spotting the 5-star sign. “All of a sudden, having spotted that 5-star sign, we ended up buying two cakes for dessert.”
Next, Grab started sending real-time restaurant deals to users whilst on a Grab ride. Riders could start planning meals before arriving at their destination.
“Maybe you took a Grab ride here, and when you’re in transit, you can start to see deals available near your area of destination,” Halim said.
In 2023, Grab added another layer to its ecosystem—the Dine-out Deals, which not only attracted new customers but also increased dining frequency amongst old-timers.
Halim said 27% of dine-in deals were bought by new customers, and 80% of those new consumers went on to make a repeat purchase within four months.
“These are just three of the bets we’ve made in order to help our merchant partners and consumers discover new dining options,” he said.
In a 2023 Grab survey, the company found that nine of 10 users preferred brands with an integrated online-to-offline experience—from discovery using the Grab app to ordering and payment at a physical restaurant. For most, the mobile phone is not just a tool for ordering but the starting point for deciding what and where to eat.
Grab is planning to create more innovations, with new features rolling out in Singapore and Indonesia in the coming weeks. “I wish I could share more now, but you’ll see it soon," Halim said.
