On March 21, the food aggregator Zomato announced that it is planning to introduce ‘Zomato Instant’ for the delivery of food within 10 minutes.
Stating increase in customers’ demand for a quick answer to their needs, Zomato’s CEO Deepinder Goyal said, “Nobody in the world has so far delivered hot and fresh food in under 10 minutes at scale, and we were eager to be the first to create this category, globally!"
After the announcement, the company faced backlash regarding the delivery partners’ safety, as well as the quality of food that will get delivered.
A day later, on March 22, Goyal took to Twitter explaining how this model will work.
Zomato has been eyeing the quick commerce space for a while in which delivery of items can be done within 10-15 minutes.
Last week, the company entered into an all-stock deal with Blinkit, earlier known as Grofers, which is the earliest believer in quick commerce services.
Zomato said that the 10-minute food delivery model will only be specific for nearby locations, and will include only popular and standardized menu items.
Zomato already has a large database regarding the most preferred choice of food and the most preferred locations across cities.
The food aggregator currently has its presence in over 80 cities across India.
Backed by Sequoia Capital, the company has heavily invested in technology to understand the customers’ demands.
Under the new model, the average kitchen preparation time is set for 2 to 4 minutes. This will be based on limited and fast-selling menus as well as predictable demand by the customers.
The average distance traveled by the delivery partners would be 1 to 2 kilometers. The company is planning to open food stations which is closer to the customer’s locations. The average time-traveled under the new model will be 3 to 6 minutes.
Notably, Zomato is reportedly in talks with restaurants across the country to launch an ultra-fast 10-minute food delivery service.
The company is looking to adopt the cloud kitchen model to be able to achieve that kind of delivery time.
