How Just Eat Takeaway.com Brings
a Local Experience to Customers and Partners
in 18 Markets
A partnership with ELL built around dedicated language teams, integrated workflows, and creativity by default.
At a Glance
marketing localization – product localization – dedicated language teams – integrated workflows – copywriting – embedded copywriters- millions of words per year – 18 markets
Before
- Recurring quality issues that didn’t get fixed despite repeated conversations
- Senior leaders regularly reaching out with translation mistakes to fix
- The same consistency errors resurfacing years apart, eroding stakeholder trust
- Expensive transcreation service needed for most marketing content
- Localization team losing internal credibility with stakeholders
After
- No more feedback from senior leadership pointing out translation mistakes
- Creative translations built in, no separate transcreation brief needed
- Pre-established workflows inside Just Eat Takeaway.com’s TMS — responses in minutes, not hours
- Fast access to embedded copywriters for local markets, fully integrated into the client’s team
- Dedicated linguists per market with full ownership from briefing to quality feedback
The Challenges
Just Eat Takeaway.com is one of the world’s largest online food delivery platforms, but consumers in each market know them by a local brand and name: Thuisbezorgd in the Netherlands, Lieferando in Germany, Just Eat Takeaway in the UK.
That makes localization unusually high-stakes, as every translation needs to feel fully local, use creativity, and reflect local nuances. Otherwise, it would break the idea that this is your neighborhood food platform.
Small teams carrying a big scope
The content demands are constant. Just Eat Takeaway.com serves consumers, restaurant partners, and couriers (and each audience needs different messaging, different tone, different information) across 18 markets, all while staying consist and keeping stakeholders happy. With two separate localization teams, one exclusively managing Marketing and one exclusively managing Product, they were looking for a true partnership.
Quality fixes that didn’t stick
Before ELL, quality issues kept resurfacing. When the team raised them, solutions were discussed but improvements didn’t last. On one project, the same consistency errors came back three separate times over three years. Each time, the team found itself losing trust from internal stakeholders and re-explaining the full history from scratch. They were open to any solution, even one that cost more, because disappointing stakeholders again wasn’t an option.
When feedback comes from the top
Senior leaders would regularly come to the team with feedback, pointing out translation mistakes that needed fixing. The team needed a partner who understood the impact of those mistakes. Instead, they often felt they had to justify why something was a problem in the first place.
The Solutions
Just Eat Takeaway.com decided to run a formal RFP and separate their technology provider from their linguistic services partner. They were looking for something different.
Listening before pitching
Before a single word was translated, ELL focused on understanding what Just Eat Takeaway.com actually needed. Where a typical RFP feels like a sales pitch, ELL tailored their response to Just Eat Takeaway.com’s specific requirements rather than presenting a standard capabilities deck. For the team, that made the difference: in an RFP, it’s easy to feel pitched to rather than listened to.
Linguist transparency
ELL welcomed Just Eat Takeaway.com’s request to meet the linguists who would handle their work. For the team, knowing who they’d be working with was essential, as it fosters trust between the agency, the linguist, and the client.
Flexibility from day one
The transition happened at a particularly complex moment: Just Eat Takeaway.com was simultaneously switching to a new TMS while onboarding ELL. But rather than waiting for a clean setup, ELL jumped in alongside them with daily email exchanges, weekly onboarding meetings, troubleshooting together in real time. That adaptability didn’t stop after onboarding. ELL integrated into Just Eat Takeaway.com’s Slack, adopted their communication style, and collaborated on implementing the templated workflows Just Eat Takeaway.com was building inside their TMS. When priorities shift (which at Just Eat Takeaway.com happens often and fast), the team adapts without friction. When a setup is new for everyone, no one has the perfect workflow from day one, and that’s exactly when flexibility matters most.
The Results
Peace of mind with dedicated language teams
Before ELL, the localization team regularly received emails from senior leadership flagging translation issues. Since the switch, that’s stopped entirely. With dedicated linguists per market and a clear process for investigating quality flags, those escalations have stopped entirely.
Behind the scenes, the shift came down to structure. ELL recruits, tests, and manages dedicated linguists for each market; Just Eat Takeaway.com signs off on who’s approved, but ELL owns the full relationship from briefing to quality feedback. Terminology and translation memories are kept up to date inside Just Eat Takeaway.com’s TMS, with linguists raising queries before delivery rather than after. And when stakeholders do flag something, dedicated LQA categories ensure the feedback loops back to the right linguist.
Built-in creativity with no extra cost
On the marketing side, the team found they no longer needed to commission a separate transcreation service for most content. ELL’s linguists brought creativity into their translations by default, finding solutions when a literal translation wouldn’t work, without needing a separate brief or a higher-tier service. That saved them significant time and money.
Time back
Workflows are now pre-established inside the TMS — no more back-and-forth about which process to follow, and no need to wait six hours for a response.
An extended team
ELL also helped Just Eat Takeaway.com find freelancers for local copywriting, work that wasn’t translation but that the internal team couldn’t always absorb. Having them on board made a significant impact on the team’s overall work-life balance. ELL has come to feel like part of the team, even if they’re not officially.
***
When asked what they’d tell a colleague at another company about ELL, the team highlighted two things: a customized approach rather than a one-size-fits-all mindset, and never feeling like ELL is trying to upsell something in every meeting.
About Entre Les Lignes (ELL)
ELL is a boutique localization agency that helps scale-ups go to market and grow in the European markets and beyond. We work as a true human-sized extension of your team: we adapt to your tools, integrate into your workflows and adapt to your ways of working. We stand for service, quality, efficiency and your peace of mind.
Want to see if The ELL Team is the right fit for your organization? Send us an email to team@ell.agency. Looking forward!
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