The Consumer Council on Thursday said it has found that meals ordered online don't always arrive at the estimated time, with some deliveries turning up late and others coming early.

The watchdog said it received more than 1,000 complaints about food ordering platforms last year, compared to around 100 back in 2019.

In December, it made 56 test orders and found that 60 percent of them were not delivered at the estimated time.

In nine instances, the delivery was late. The longest delay was 19 minutes.

The watchdog said there were also wide variations in expected delivery times, with one wait around 1.5 hours.

Kenneth Chan, vice-chairman of the council’s publicity and community relations committee, said customers expect better.

“This is not a satisfactory delivery time for the platforms to deliver the food to consumers… I think for not reasonable cases like this, consumers should have the right to cancel their orders,” he said.

The watchdog urged people to pay attention to estimated delivery times, as two of the platforms it used stated that orders can't be cancelled once confirmed by the restaurant involved.