India’s eating habits are changing dramatically. Restaurant-quality meal
delivery was still primarily limited to foods like pizza and Chinese less
than two decades ago. The Indian online food delivery space has
witnessed a massive boom in recent years. From a mere $4.82 billion
revenues in 2017, it reached $27.47 billion in 2022. Revenue in the
Online Food Delivery market is projected to reach US$34.68bn in 2023.
Notably, by 2027 it is expected to reach $71.62 billion. 1
The Grocery Delivery segment is expected to show a revenue
growth of 36.1% in 2024.
VARIOUS FOOD DELIVERY SERVICES IN INDIA 2
1. Zomato
The app was launched in 2008 by Deepinder Goyal and Pankaj Chaddah.
It started with providing reviews and information about restaurants and
gradually evolved into online table reservations and online food delivery.
It is already operational in 24 countries across the world. Zomato aspires
to be your online food delivery partner no matter which part of the
world you are in.
Key highlights:
The menus are scanned and uploaded, and you can also get reviews
from people who have had previous experience with the place.
Every restaurant is given ratings and reviews by people who have
ordered from those restaurants, this helps you choose the best
restaurant for yourself.
Zomato lets you become an ambassador for your favourite
restaurant, so you can distribute discount coupons to your family
and friends. Their “deal of the day” feature unlocks jaw-dropping offers and
discounts at different restaurants every day.
2. Swiggy
Based in Bangalore and operated by Bundl Technologies Private Limited,
Swiggy was founded in 2014 by Nandan Reddy, Rahul Jaimini, and
Sriharsha Majety. They started their journey with food delivery in
Bangalore.
This hyperlocal food delivery app currently operates in 25 cities in India
and has about 40,000 restaurants globally. In a short span, Swiggy has
established a reputation for itself in the online food delivery space.
Key highlights:
They also have a feature called Swiggy Pop, wherein single-serve
meals can be ordered with just a tap and prices as low as Rs. 50. This
feature enables one to order food for only one person without
worrying about wastage and eliminates the hassle of typing
unnecessarily to fulfil the minimum billing condition.
Their best in town tab shows you all the best-selling dishes in your
locality.
Because of such a wide assortment of restaurants, you can find all
sorts of foods and cuisines.
3. Domino’s
Domino’s is very well known in India’s food space as the ultimate pizza
restaurant and rightly so.
Key highlights:
They promise delivery within 30 minutes of placing the order.
Domino’s offers a variety of very affordable pizzas4. Dunzo
Dunzo is a food delivery app that offers fresh and delicious food to
people in a hurry.
Dunzo delivers a wide variety of other stuff as well. They are literally
your one-stop-shop for ordering things online, which is why they are one
of the best online food delivery apps in India.
Key highlights:
For those who live in the Bangalore location, Dunzo, a popular
instant food app, delivers food in 19 minutes. Sounds crazy, right?
With Dunzo, no delivery is too small, you can order any quantity you
want.
OTHER NOTABLE APPS:
Uber Eats
FoodPanda
McDonald’s
EatSure
Faasos
Pizza Hut
Box8
KFC
FreshMenu
Deliveroo
No of respondents for the below survey: 300
Table Source:MITTAL SCHOOL OF BUSINESS
LOVELY PROFESSIONAL UNIVERSITY, Advances in Mathematics: Scientifific Journal 10 (2021), no.1,
507–516FOOD DELIVERY MARKET STATS IN INDIA: 4
Rise Of Dark Stores, Focus On Private Labels
As hyperlocal delivery players aim to deliver faster, most of them are
setting up multiple dark stores/mini-warehouses across neighbourhoods
to meet the delivery rush in the shortest possible time. Both dark stores
and cloud/ghost kitchens are B2B delivery-only facilities, and consumers
cannot directly purchase from these units.More Statistics via. Graphs:INNOVATION IN FOOD DELIVERY INDUSTRY ACROSS GLOBE: 3
#1 Millenials as key drivers
Millennials are the priority audience for food delivery services as
they spend the highest share of their budgets on prepared food
compared to other generations. With fast-paced lives, Generation Y is
more apt to eat in quick-service restaurants and order food delivery.
Technomic’s Generational report cites that in 3 out of 5 cases Millennials
order food delivery or visit restaurants for takeout.#2 New delivery channels
2.1 Order by Tweet
Domino’s Pizza was first to conquer the Twitterverse and let people
order pizza by just tweeting a pizza emoji to the company’s Twitter
account. Of course, we might wonder how Domino’s can guess what
kind of pizza you want and where to deliver it.
The deal is that before taking advantage of this service you need to
make a “pizza profile” on Domino’s online delivery service. Then you can
save your default order, called an Easy Order, and link your Twitter
account to your pizza profile.
The initial idea of Fooji was to let customers order all sorts of meals via
corresponding emojis. Once you’d set up an account, you had access to
sixteen entree options and eight desserts, eight drinks, and eight sides.
But what emojis represented those options? Each week the Fooji team
chose delicacies from local restaurants to represent emojis. And a sweet
bonus was that Fooji’s favorite meal of the week could be ordered with
the fork-and-knife emoji.
2.2 Order via a virtual assistant
Domino’s hasn’t stopped with ordering by tweets. And the brand has
even created a Pizza bot for Facebook messenger named ‘Dom’. Now
customers can message ‘Dom’ and request food with a single word or
emoji. ‘Dom’ also replies to customer inquiries about vouchers and the
latest deals.
Grubhub has integrated with Alexa, Amazon’s virtual assistant
They have also incorporated other smarter delivery channels like order
via smartTV, smartwatch, car’s dashboard
#3 Modern delivery options
3.1 Delivery with robots
The evolution of AI technologies is giving rise to self-driving delivery cars
and robots. For instance, Just Eat and Starship Technologies have
developed moving pavement droids to deliver food in the UK3.2 Delivery with drones
Drone food delivery started with Tacocopter carrying tacos in the San
Francisco area. Then we saw Burrito Bomber in 2012 and the
Domicopter being tested by an independent Domino’s UK franchise in
2013.
#4 Embracing new niches
Many food delivery services have focused on a special niche. We’ve
already seen food delivery platforms that appeal to vegans and
companies that deliver strictly burger boxes or farm-grown food or
healthy smoothies.
4.1 Food waste apps
Each year, one-third of the food produced worldwide gets wasted. Food
waste apps tackle this problem and help to save the planet. They help
restaurants and grocery stores to get rid of leftovers and supply people
in need with low-priced food.
Food for All is one of these apps. This service offers unsold meals from
local restaurants, cafes, and delis with a 50 percent discount.
4.2 Apps with a virtual kitchen
UberEats has come up with the concept of a virtual kitchen: the platform
lists new eateries and meals only available in their app. UberEats
decided to help restaurants avoid the high operating costs of opening a
new physical space and provide convenience to partnering restaurants
by allowing them to use their kitchen space to prepare extra meals.
For example, Uber Eats could allow a salad cafe to also offer sandwiches
with minimal changes to the ingredients in-store. This cafe could
become a virtual sandwich cafe in the Uber Eats app while staying a
salad cafe at their physical location.
#5 Big data
Big data is helping to revolutionize food delivery services and make them
as efficient as possible. Food providers collect and analyze a huge scope
of data including road traffic;
the impact of temperature on food;
the impact of market trends on stock consumption;
customer purchasing history;
items currently in the shopping bag;
reviews and comments on social media;
posts customer share on social networks;
… and so on.
This information helps food delivery companies accurately estimate the
delivery time, monitor customer emotions on social media, and
immediately react to complaints, personalize food offers, and more.
Grubhub, for instance, analyzes data about millions of orders to come up
with the most appropriate meal recommendations for each customer.
Doordash employs big data to manage inventory and to predict the
number of couriers required for a particular day, expected demand for a
specific cuisine, and food preparation time.
Just Eat examines hundreds of thousands of customer records to
understand what customers want from their service: what types of food
they’ll order, when, and how often. Big data has contributed to the
company’s 50 percent growth in the UK market.PROBLEMS FACED BY CUSTOMERS IN FOOD DELIVERY INDUSTRY: 3
Key reasons for abandoning a order:
they have a poor customer experience
adults want an easier online ordering system.
Inability to customize the order
Questions about the menu not answered in website /app
App/website not functioning properly.
REFERENCES:
1. https://www.statista.com/outlook/dmo/online-food-
delivery/india#:~:text=Revenue%20in%20the%20Online%20Food,growt
h%20of%2036.1%25%20in%202024.
2. https://www.grabon.in/indulge/food/best-food-delivery-apps-in-
india/
3. https://rubygarage.org/blog/food-delivery-trends-2019
4. https://inc42.com/features/zomato-swiggy-dunzo-or-zepto-who-led-
the-indian-hyperlocal-delivery-war-in-2021/
