From Momos To Biryani: How Will Zomato Deliver Instant Food In 10 Minutes, Founder Explains

Food delivery platform Zomato faced backlash from several social media users, a day after the company’s CEO Deepinder Goyal announced the app’s latest 10-minute delivery service. Goyal said that the service "will be for specific nearby locations, popular and standardised items only."

New Delhi: Soon after online food delivery platform Zomato declared ‘Zomato Instant’, a model under which food will be delivered in 10 minutes, it faced massive flak on social media who wary that the new service will push delivery partners into a tough and unsafe working environment. However, its founder Deepinder Goyal took to Twitter to make clarification. He said that the service “will only be for items that are popular, standardised and can therefore be dispatched within 2 minutes” and also highlighted the kind of food items that will be delivered in 10 minutes. He said that users can expect food items such as “Bread Omelette, Poha, Coffee, Chai, Biryani, Momos, etc” to be delivered in 10-minutes under the Instant service. And in case if you order noodles, fried rice, or pizza, the delivery time will extend to the usual 30 minutes or more, sometimes depending on the distance.

Safety of delivery partners

Goyal clarified that the company will continue to educate delivery agents on road safety, and provide accidental/life insurance as well. He further said that the delivery partner would not be informed about the promised delivery time which he believes will ensure that no additional pressure is put on the delivery agent.

Comparison between 10-minute and 30-minute deliveries

In a twitter thread, Goyal shared a chart wherein a comparison between 10-minute and 30-minute deliveries was mentioned. The table mentions three major factors for deliveries: Kitchen preparation time, average distance traveled, and average time traveled.

According to the chart, it takes at least 2 to 4 minutes of kitchen preparation time for a 10-minute delivery, whereas it takes atleast 15-20 minutes in the case of 30-minute standard delivery. The chart further shows that for a 10-minute delivery service, Zomato is opening stations about 1 to 2 kms closer to customer’s location. And in case of a standard 30-minute delivery the distance is 5 to 7 kms away from customer’s address.

Therefore, delivery partners will take about 3 to 6 minutes at an average speed of 20 kilometer per hour to deliver the food, whereas for standard delivery it takes upto 15 to 20 minutes of time.

Why 10-minute food delivery?

According to a statement by the online delivery platform, Customers are increasingly demanding quicker answers to their needs. They don’t want to plan, and they don’t want to wait. In fact, sorting restaurants by fastest delivery time is one of the most used features on the Zomato app. In addition to that, after becoming a frequent customer of Blinkit (one of Zomato’s investments in the quick commerce space), the company felt that the 30-minute average delivery time by Zomato is too slow, and will soon have to become obsolete.

How is this even going to happen?

Each of Zomato’s finishing stations will house bestseller items (20-30 dishes) from various restaurants based on demand predictability and hyperlocal preferences.  “Zomato has certain data about the customers-age, locality, restaurants they eat from, their favourite dishes etc. the company can predict the trens on how many probable orders could come at any given point in the future with the previous data,” Rajath Ratnakaran, a data analyst told.

If Zomato Instant works as envisioned, it will create significant impact on Affordability (at least 50% reduction in cost to the end customer), Accessibility (reduction of delivery time from 30 minutes average to under 10 minutes), and Quality (with influence over the supply chain, we will be able to ensure highest grade ingredients and hygiene practices across the supply chain), the company said.