July the 4th, 2021 - The much loved Croatian Pauza delivery platform is no more following Glovo's takeover. The business move was initially announced back in May this year, and the first Croatian platform of this kind has now been extinguished.

As Poslovni Dnevnik/Sergej Novosel Vuckovic writes, just as was announced back at the end of May, the once first Croatian web and mobile service for ordering and delivering food from restaurants - Pauza.hr, has now ceased to exist under that name and officially operates within the Glovo platform, one of the largest global platforms for delivery.

Glovo announced that it would take over the Croatian Pauza delivery platform as part of the acquisitions of the Delivery Hero group in seven countries in Croatia's immediate region, of which Pauza was a part. Now all the conditions have been met and the green light of the regulator has been obtained, and the transaction was formally realised.

The Croatian Pauza, therefore, will no longer deliver orders and no longer operates, which can be seen on its page as people are automatically redirected to the Glovo page. The same applies to the Pauza application, as explained by Glovo, otherwise the Croatian market leader in on-demand delivery:

“The entire content of their application and website has already been transferred over to Glovo. Users who enter the Pauza app will be redirected to Glovo through personalised links and will be able to easily register for Glovo in just a few steps. Users of Pauza's website will be redirected to the Glovo website,'' they pointed out.

Catering facilities already present on the Pauza platform don't have to worry, nor do the platform's users, because a total of 800 restaurants have been successfully moved over to the Glovo platform. Glovo also cooperates with the retail chains Lonia, Tommy, dm and even INA petrol stations, and users know very well that they can order almost everything at home or to their office - from sandwiches and fresh meat to flowers, drinks and cosmetics.

“On-demand delivery platforms have been well received on the Croatian market and we're glad to be part of that success. In a very short period of time, from the announcement of the acquisition of the Croatian Pauza platform to the realisation itself, we worked diligently to provide users with the same choice of food they had with Pauza, but more than that. We're convinced that by combining the content and operational expertise of both applications we'll be able to offer our users a much better experience and ultimately the overall user experience,'' said Teo Sirola, CEO of Glovo Croatia.

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May the 27th, 2021 - Glovo is set to purchase the wildly popular Croatian food delivery service Pauza.hr, adding that they also plan for more acquisitions and further expansion across Croatia's immediate region.

As Novac writes, Glovo, a leading delivery platform for various product categories, recently announced a series of separate acquisition agreements with Delivery Hero Group, one of the world's leading delivery platforms, which will acquire some of their companies in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), including one Croatian food delivery service - Pauza.hr.

The transaction is expected to be concluded in full over the next few weeks, depending on the fulfillment of previously agreed conditions, as well as the relevant regulatory approvals, a statement from Glovo read. The acquisition includes seven countries in Croatia's immediate region where Delivery Hero operates, namely: Romania, Bulgaria, Serbia, Montenegro, Bosnia and Herzegovina and here in Croatia.

Glovo will acquire the Foodpanda brand in Romania and Bulgaria, the Donesi brand in Serbia, Montenegro, Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Pauza.hr brand in Croatia.

In a separate agreement, Glovo recently announced that an agreement had been reached on the acquisition of Ehrana, a local delivery platform from neighbouring Slovenia, without highlighting the value of the transaction. That transaction is expected to close over the next few months, and Glovo is currently working closely with Ehrana to define a transition strategy for both customers and partners and suppliers.

“Focusing on markets where we see clear opportunities for leadership and building sustainable business has always been at the core of our long-term strategy. Central and Eastern Europe are an important part of that plan. This region has wholeheartedly embraced delivery platforms and we're very excited to strengthen our position and increase our presence in countries that are constantly showing huge growth potential,'' stated Oscar Pierre, the co-founder and CEO of Glovo.

"Over the last few years, Delivery Hero has successfully built a leading position here in the Balkans. However, given the many other priorities ahead of us, I believe that Glovo is in a better position to continue to develop an excellent user experience for our customers in this region,'' concluded Niklas Ostberg, the CEO and co-founder of Delivery Hero.

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February 11, 2021 – In the capital city of Croatia, they call it fast food for a very good reason. One Zagreb scooter and its delivery driver were videoed doing incredible speeds of over 70km/h on one of their runs.

In the capital city of Croatia, they call it fast food for a very good reason. But not everyone knew just how fast, until now. One Zagreb scooter and its delivery driver were videoed doing incredible speeds of over 70km/h on a city centre dual carriageway (divided highway). Standing upright on the thin deck of the electric vehicle, the Zagreb scooter manages to keep pace with the much more powerful cars and vans that surround him on the road.

The fast-moving Zagreb scooter was caught on the dashcam of another delivery driver who was making a similar run down Slavonska avenue on 7 February. The dual carriageway is one of the busiest and fastest in Zagreb.

It's not only the pace of the Zagreb scooter which lets you know he may be carrying hot kebabs, pizza or hamburgers to a hungry household. The driver of the Zagreb scooter is wearing one of the distinctive cube-shaped backpacks worn by fast food deliverymen all over Zagreb.

The delivery driver in the car keeps his distance from the Zagreb scooter, but his dashcam records the speed at which he's travelling. Despite hitting speeds of 73km/h himself, the car driver gains no distance on the Zagreb scooter.

The video footage has been copied and posted across social media many times. In their popular article of the video on 10 February, Croatian news portal Index said they had sent an inquiry to the Zagreb police about this event, and were expecting an answer during the morning of 11 February.

While some food delivery customers may not be discontented to know the hair-raising lengths to which drivers go to make sure their food arrives hot, you suspect many more would be just as happy if the drivers travelled with the utmost caution – and at perhaps more appropriate speeds – when making their runs.

First came Wolt, Glovo and Pauza with their distinctive and bright bags full of food, and now comes Bolt Food with a green one that is sure to stand out on the streets of the Croatian capital city.

As Poslovni Dnevnik writes on the 19th of May, 2020, as of today, Bolt has launched a brand new food delivery service, Bolt Food, in the City of Zagreb. During this promotional period, delivery will be free for all restaurants within a three-kilometre radius, so users will only pay for the meals ordered.

In order to order food, the user must download the Bolt Food app to their smartphone, and in it they will then see the available restaurants and their respective menus. Before confirming a food order, the price and estimated delivery time will be displayed in the application.

As a means of payment, the user must enter their bank card details when using the Bolt Food application in order for delivery to be completely contactless, thus ensuring safety in the coronavirus era by removing the need for cash transactions between users and those delivering the food.

The user can also specify in the application the exact location where the delivery person can leave the food upon arrival if they want to make sure that absolutely zero physical contact of any kind occurs during the exchange of the items orders. As stated, currently, delivery from restaurants located up to three kilometres from the customer's location/address is free, and each additional kilometre comes with an extra charge of just four kuna.

It is currently possible to order food from more than seventy restaurants in Zagreb through Bolt Food, and Bolt wants to continue to add new restaurants across Zagreb to the app every day. Currently, delivery is possible in the area north of the Sava river, and the delivery area will be expanded regularly.

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You might have noticed people in bright coloured shirts riding around on bikes in Croatia over the last year or so. These independent delivery services are becoming more and more popular with the Croatian population, and they quickly deliver everything from food to medicine.

As Poslovni Dnevnik writes on the 27th of August, 2019, after annoying some of Zagreb's hospitality facility owners by listing them in their application (app) without their explicit permission, Glovo has gone from strength to strength and employed more than 400 people to do deliveries around the city after being in business for just five months in Zagreb.

In addition, they now cooperate with more than 100 hospitality facility owners, some of whom are offering their services online for the very first time, and finally entering the 21st century, according to a report from Vecernji list.

''We're already number one, and we want to continue in that direction," says Teo Širola, CEO of Glovo Services for Croatia, an international company that has grown from a startup for on-demand delivery from Barcelona in 2015, to having a value estimated at 300 million euros (2018), in just a few years.

That being said, the company isn't going public with the number of daily deliveries, explains Širola. But in their first year of business in Croatia, they aim for 1,000 employees doing the deliveries and about 100,000 deliveries per month.

"You order, we'll deliver," is the slogan of their application, and it is in "translation", it states that they will deliver, directly to the customer's address, anything that fits into their rather large delivery bag. And that - unlike the competition that is mainly food-oriented, they'll deliver gifts, medicines, groceries, books, coffee and cakes, and as of fairly recently, even McDonald's food. 

Glovo also collaborates with McDonald's in some other countries, too, and began delivering from three popular McDonald's restaurants in Zagreb quite recently.

"Delivery is the fastest growing food sales channel in the restaurant business today, and this trend will continue in the coming years. It was logical to expand our delivery service because it allows us to have an additional sales channel and to grow our business,'' stated McDonald's, adding that they're going to continue with this type of delivery expansion.

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