Why does a dish that is profitable dine-in lose money on delivery?

Because delivery carries costs the dine-in price was never built to absorb. The aggregator commission comes off the top of the order, packaging adds a real per-order cost, and any promotion or sponsored placement is a further cut on the same ticket. Stack those on a dish priced for the table and the margin can disappear — or go negative — without the menu price ever changing.

From Aggregator Economics 2026: What Delivery Really Costs in the UAE, KSA and India — the full reading, with the method behind this answer.