Who Offers Product Sampling Through Uber Eats and Deliveroo in London? Encore Kitchens' Delivery Sampling
Product sampling is one of the fastest ways to turn awareness into purchase: recent research found 82% of consumers are highly likely to buy a product after trying it. Delivery orders take that further, putting your product in people's hands at home, just as they've settled in with an order they chose, when they're often more open to trying something new.
If you're looking to reach customers through food delivery in London, Encore Kitchens offers a cost-effective way to do it, placing your product directly into the delivery orders of the restaurant brands cooking in its kitchens nationwide, across Uber Eats, Deliveroo and Just Eat.
As the UK's largest commercial kitchen operator, with 550+ kitchens across 25 UK locations, Encore works with the restaurants packing these orders every day. It has already distributed 1.8 million+ samples across 300+ partners and 15+ cuisines, for brands including Heinz, Coca-Cola, and Lipton.
Who Offers Delivery Sampling in London?
Brands in London can sample through delivery orders in a few ways: through the delivery platforms' own advertising teams, through specialist sampling agencies, or directly with a delivery kitchen operator.
Encore Kitchens offers the third route, and it gives brands lower costs, faster answers and a campaign built around exactly the restaurants and customers they want to reach. That's possible because Encore works with the restaurant brands in its own kitchens every day, so your product goes from brief to delivery bag through one direct point of contact.
Why Brands Choose Encore for Delivery Sampling
Working inside the kitchens shapes how every Encore campaign runs. Brands choose Encore for:
- Direct access to restaurants: your brief goes straight to the kitchens through Encore's own sampling team, with no agency layer adding cost or slowing replies.
- Willing partners and happier customers: a free extra in the bag is a welcome surprise for customers, helping restaurants earn more positive reviews and repeat orders. That's why restaurants are keen to take part, and why your product arrives as part of a good experience.
- Expert matching and targeting: the team helps you choose the right cuisines, areas and restaurants for your product, or reach the whole network.
- Flexible scale and pricing: no minimum number of kitchens, orders or samples, with pricing shaped around your campaign.
- Detailed campaign reporting: two types of reporting show exactly how your campaign performed:
- Operational reporting: stock received, stock distributed, remaining stock, participating locations and proof-of-sampling photos.
- Performance reporting: customer feedback, average order value, order occasion and campaign duration.
Booking direct vs through an agency
Encore also works with sampling agencies, so its restaurants can be reached either way. Booking direct gives you a better deal on cost, speed and control.
| Direct with Encore | Through an agency | |
|---|---|---|
| Cost | No agency margin; pricing flexes with campaign scale and requirements | Agency fee or revenue share built into the price |
| Communication | You deal directly with Encore's sampling team | Messages pass through the agency first |
| Campaign design | Built with the team that manages the restaurants, including exclusive pairings | Shaped by the agency's wider plan and partner range |
| Best for | Brands focused on delivery sampling | Brands running several sampling channels under one agency brief |
If delivery sampling is a core part of your plan, going direct removes a layer of cost and gets you answers faster.
What Products Can You Sample?
If your product can travel in a delivery bag, it can very likely be sampled through Encore. Campaigns are open to food and drink brands and the wider fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) market, from new launches to established household names.
A few examples of what can go in the bag:
- Snacks and shelf-stable food
- Soft drinks in cans or bottles
- Alcoholic drinks in cans or glass bottles
- Chilled and frozen food
- Sauces, condiments and sachets
- Flyers and printed promotions
- Plus a wide range of other consumer products, as long as each item is 500ml or under
The 500ml guideline keeps bags easy for restaurant teams and riders to handle, and suits most sample formats.
Help finding the right restaurants for your product
Encore's sampling team works with you to place your product where it fits best, and checks every restaurant's suitability before any stock goes out. It starts with understanding your product and who you want to reach, then matching it to the cuisines, areas and restaurant brands whose customers are most likely to enjoy it. A new milkshake might suit burger and wings orders, for example, while a premium dessert might sit best alongside Italian or Indian meals.
The team also takes care of the practical side. Each restaurant is confirmed as a good fit before it's included, taking into account things like licensing, dietary requirements such as halal, and whether it's happy to follow the campaign's guidelines. The result is that every sample goes to a kitchen that's set up to hand it out properly.
Restaurant Brands in Encore's Sampling Network
Encore's sampling network spans a wide mix of restaurant brands, from international chains to fast-growing independents, and it keeps growing as new brands join its kitchens. That variety gives you the flexibility to choose restaurants that complement your product and reach customers in the right dining moments: a soft drink with spicy chicken, a sauce with burgers, or a sweet treat with an Italian meal.
In London, Encore runs delivery kitchens across the capital, including Kentish Town, Tottenham Hale, Shoreditch, Bethnal Green, Tower Bridge, Battersea, Balham, Wandsworth, Fulham, Croydon and Chiswick. That spread means a campaign can focus on specific areas or reach delivery customers right across north, south, east and west London.
Here are just some of the restaurant brands that take part in these sampling campaigns:
| Cuisine | Example restaurant brands |
|---|---|
| Chicken and wings | Popeyes, Wing Shack, Waves and Wings |
| Burgers | Bronson's Burgers, 12th Street Burgers |
| Pizza, pasta and Italian | Caprinos, Matteo's Cucina Italiana, Pasta Chronicles, The Pasta Poet |
| Greek and Turkish | It's All Greek To Me, Original Turkish Eatery, Gyro Guys |
| Tacos and street food | Birria Y Tacos, French Tacos |
| Chinese, Japanese and Thai | GagaXiang Chinese Restaurant, Ikkan Sushi, Rama Thai |
| Indian and Pakistani | The Indian Pantry, Lahore Karahi |
| Sandwiches | Sandwich Pioneers |
Campaign Options to Fit Your Goals
No two sampling briefs are the same. A soft drink launch might want every kitchen it can reach, while a premium hot sauce might want one well-matched burger brand. Encore can shape a campaign in several ways:
| Format | What it involves | Best for |
|---|---|---|
| Network-wide | Every eligible restaurant brand in the network distributes your samples | Maximum reach and fast trial |
| Targeted | Restaurants chosen by cuisine, location or customer profile | Products that suit particular meals, areas and demographics |
| Exclusive | Your brand paired with one restaurant brand in a bespoke campaign | Co-branded promotions and close brand alignment |
| Content-led | Sampling plus co-branded social or influencer content from Encore's in-house creative team | Launches that need awareness as well as trial |
Exclusive campaigns are possible because Encore's sampling team has close, trusted relationships with the restaurant brands in its network, so a one-to-one pairing can be built entirely around your brand.
Choosing how customers receive your sample
Every campaign also uses one of two mechanics, depending on what you want to learn and what you're sampling:
| Mechanic | How it works | Best for |
|---|---|---|
| Surprise & delight | Samples are added to the bag automatically, with no action needed from the customer | Fast distribution at scale, ideal for soft drinks and snacks |
| Opt-in | The sample is listed on Uber Eats or Deliveroo and customers choose to add it to their order | Slower distribution, but clearer insight into demand for your product; the natural choice for alcohol, where customers must be 18+ |
How a Sampling Campaign Works
Running a sampling campaign with Encore is simple. You deal with one team that manages everything from brief to wrap-up, while participating restaurants handle sample distribution. With no agency in the middle, there's less admin, fewer handovers and lower costs. Most campaigns follow six steps:
- Enquiry. You share your product and goals through Encore's Product Sampling page.
- Brief. You and the sampling team agree the product, sample volume, timings and any targeting by cuisine, location or audience.
- Restaurant selection. The team invites the restaurant brands that fit the brief and confirms each one's eligibility.
- Stock delivery. Samples go straight to each kitchen, or you send everything to Encore's central warehouse, its own third-party logistics (3PL) service. The team then splits the stock and delivers it to each participating restaurant, saving delivery runs and keeping costs down.
- Distribution. Restaurants add your samples to Uber Eats, Deliveroo and Just Eat orders.
- Monitoring and proof. Restaurants report stock levels and share proof of distribution, which the team tracks throughout.
Responsibilities are split like this:
| Encore Kitchens manages: | Participating restaurant brands manage: |
|---|---|
| Campaign brief and requirements | Confirming they have room to store the stock |
| Selecting and targeting restaurant brands | Receiving and storing samples |
| Allocating stock across kitchens | Adding a sample to each eligible order |
| Coordinating deliveries | Following the campaign's sampling instructions |
| Monitoring the campaign while it runs | Sending stock updates and proof of distribution |
Each restaurant brand opts in campaign by campaign, so every kitchen handing out your product has agreed to do it.
Results From Encore's Delivery Sampling
| Measure | Figure |
|---|---|
| Samples distributed | 1.8 million+ |
| Partners | 300+ |
| Cuisines covered | 15+ |
| Delivery platforms | Uber Eats, Deliveroo, Just Eat |
Case study: Heinz Mayonnaise
Encore ran a UK-wide sampling campaign for Heinz Mayonnaise through 35 of its top delivery restaurant partners, placing more than 100,000 samples into customer orders across four major UK cities.
- For Heinz: instant product trial among delivery customers, at scale, across multiple restaurant brands, cuisines and cities from a single brief.
- For the restaurants: a surprise extra in the bag that lifted customer satisfaction, increased positive reviews and encouraged repeat orders, at no cost to them.
When a brand needs national reach, campaigns like this can extend well beyond London.
Delivery also gives sampling a large, regular audience. Encore's figures show 1 in 2 UK adults order food delivery at least once a week, with 20–44 year-olds the group most likely to order takeaway online.
Ready to get your product into delivery bags?
Tell Encore about your product, target volume and timings through the Product Sampling enquiry form. The sampling team will come back with a campaign plan and pricing built around your goals.
FAQs
Can a brand put free samples in Deliveroo or Uber Eats orders?
Yes. Samples are added by the restaurant packing the order rather than by the platform, so a brand needs a route to those restaurants. Encore Kitchens provides that route through the restaurant brands operating from its delivery kitchens.
Can I target specific areas of London?
Yes. Encore campaigns can be targeted by location as well as by cuisine and audience profile, so you can focus on particular parts of London or reach delivery customers across the whole capital through Encore's network of delivery kitchens.
What kinds of brands use delivery sampling?
Food and drink brands are the most frequent users, typically to support NPD (new product development) launches, drive trial of a new flavour or reach a younger audience. Any consumer brand whose customers order takeaway can use it, from established household names to start-ups. Some brands also use sampling to make good use of surplus stock, such as products approaching their best-before date, putting it in front of new customers rather than letting it go to waste.
Can I sample something that isn't food or drink?
Often, yes. Encore's campaigns cover the wider FMCG market as well as printed flyers, and the main guideline is that items are 500ml or smaller. The sampling team can confirm fit for your product.
How is delivery sampling different from street or in-store sampling?
Street and in-store teams reach passers-by, many of whom aren't thinking about food. A delivery sample arrives at home with an order the customer chose, rather than being handed over on the move. There are also no promotional staff to pay per site, because restaurant teams already packing the order do the hand-out.
Being at home also makes customers more likely to act on your call to action. Most samples come with a flyer inviting customers to scan a QR code to enter a competition or claim a discount on their next in-store purchase. At home, they have time to follow it up, whereas a flyer handed out on the way to work is easily forgotten or thrown away.
Is there a minimum campaign size?
No. Encore sets no minimum number of kitchens, orders or samples, so you can start with a focused test and scale up once you see the response.
How much does a delivery sampling campaign cost?
Pricing depends on sample volume, the number of restaurants and extras such as warehouse fulfilment or exclusivity. Encore quotes each campaign after the brief, with no agency margin added.
How do I know the samples were actually handed out?
Participating restaurants send stock updates during the campaign and share proof of distribution, including proof-of-sampling photos, which Encore monitors throughout and reports back to you directly. If your samples include a flyer with a QR code or sign-up offer, you can also track engagement through scans and subscriptions.
I run a restaurant brand. Can I take part in sampling?
Yes. Sampling campaigns are open to restaurant brands beyond Encore's own kitchens, and participating restaurants receive free samples from major food and drink brands to add to their customers' orders. To get involved, contact Encore's sampling team. If you're also looking for kitchen space, explore Encore's delivery kitchens or book a tour of an Encore site.