Zomato Announces 10-Minute Food Delivery Service

Synopsis- Making the announcement Deepinder Goyal posted an explainer on Twitter about the instant food-delivery services detailing all the precautions the company is going to take and how the service will be rolled out. 

Taking up the speed of rivals, food delivery giant Zomato has announced faster food delivery in under 10 minutes from the upcoming month. Founder Co-Founder Deepinder Goyal took microblogging site Twitter to make the announcement stating that the services will firstly be available in Gurgaon.

Making the announcement Goyal posted an explainer on Twitter about the instant food-delivery services detailing all the precautions the company is going to take and how the service will be rolled out. He tweeted, 

“Announcement: 10-minute food delivery is coming soon on Zomato.”

In a bid to avoid the backlash and criticism that Zomato-backed Blinkit (formerly Grofers) faced over their promise of the fastest grocery delivery under 10 minutes that made delivery partners who even met with accidents, Goyal clarified about the precautions. He mentioned that Zomato will not be pressurizing the delivery partners for the ‘quick delivery’.

“We do not put any pressure on delivery partners to deliver food faster. Nor do we penalize delivery partners for late deliveries. The delivery partners are not informed of the promised time of delivery. Time optimization does not happen on the road and does not put any lives at risk,” Goyal said in the statement.

He further mentioned that the quick delivery will rely on a ‘dense finishing counters’ network’ that will be located close to the areas where high demand comes from. 

In the statement, the Co-Founder also assured that “Sophisticated dish-level demand prediction algorithms and future-ready in-stations robotics are employed’ in order to make sure that the food is ‘sterile, fresh and hot’ at the time of packing by the delivery partners.

Answering why the company is introducing ’10-minute food delivery’ Goyal added in the statement, 

“Customers are increasingly demanding quicker answers to their needs. they don’t want to plan, and they don’t want to wait.”

He asserted that the feature that lets customers sort restaurants by fastest delivery time is among the most used features on the Zomato app.

Goyal referring to his appetite for getting faster grocery delivery service from Blinkit which offers 10-minute grocery delivery services opined that the 30-minute delivery time on his platform is ‘too slow’. He furthermore added that the service on Zomato will soon become ‘obsolete’ and if he doesn’t upgrade, someone else (rival companies) will do.

Sharing how the services will be implemented Goyal added in the statement that each finishing station will have ‘bestseller items that will include over 20-30 dishes from a variety of restaurants that will be based on the demand predictability and ‘hyperlocal preferences.

“Due to demand predictability at a hyperlocal level, we expect that the price for the customer will get significantly reduced, while the absolute rupee margin/income for our restaurant partners as well as our delivery partners, will remain the same,” Goyal said while predicting the further outcomes from the announcement.

Notably, the step has by Zomato has incited a discussion and a meme-fest on social media where users could be seen discussing various aspects of such a ‘fast food-delivery service’. Companies like Zepto, Blinkit, and Swiggy Instamart are already offering similar services for instant grocery delivery.