The 2020 directory
Delivereat was a free list of independent 🥝 businesses that were still delivering during the COVID-19 lockdown. It ran from 30 March to the end of June 2020.
Read the study: what happened to the 874 businesses, six years on →
How it looked
A list, a filter, and a link to order
New Zealand went into alert level 4 on 26 March 2020. Supermarkets were open, and almost nothing else was. Hundreds of small food and drink businesses could still deliver under the essential services rules, but nobody knew which ones, and they had no way to tell people.
Delivereat went live four days later. A business filled in a short form: its name, what it sold, where it delivered, and a link to order. It appeared on the list the same day. Anyone could filter the list by what they needed and click through to the business's own shop. Delivereat took no orders, no payments and no commission.
The list in numbers
874 businesses in 13 weeks
- 874 businesses listed, free of charge
- 391 of them in the first seven days
- 13 product categories, from fruit and veg to fur food
- 679 delivered nationwide
- 207 sold alcohol, the largest group
- 136 sold pantry goods
- 104 sold coffee or tea
- 101 sold fruit and veg
The list was shared by the NZ Herald, RNZ, The Spinoff, Sharesies and Xero, among others, as a way to support local businesses through the lockdown.
Who made it
Two people and a weekend
Delivereat was made by Denym Bird and Alex Hamilton. It was built over a weekend on a form and a spreadsheet, with no business plan. They liked building things, and they wanted to help Kiwi businesses get through it.
The directory is no longer published. Many of its listings are out of date, and some of the businesses have since closed. In September 2026 every listing was checked again to see what happened to them.