All Posts in FoodTech

|In: Food-Commerce|Last Updated: | 0 Comments

Uber Eats, the on-demand food delivery app has completed its first successful year of operations in India. Launched in Mumbai in May 2017, Uber Eats has grown its presence in India by expanding to 13 cities in India and adding more than 40 restaurants daily onto its platform. Uber Eats is now focused on taking the service to tier 2 markets.

Image Source – Uber Eats

The platform is also experiencing nearly 50% MoM growth, in its first year of operations. It has more than doubled in terms of number of orders in the last 3 months.  Uber Eats is currently present in 13 cities across the country namely – Mumbai, Gurgaon, Delhi, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Chennai, Coimbatore, Vizag, Jaipur, Kochi, Pune and Chandigarh and is focused on expanding its footprint to additional tier 2 markets in the coming month.

Bhavik Rathod, Head of Uber Eats, India, said

It has been an exciting journey for Uber Eats and we’re happy to celebrate this milestone today as we complete a year in India. We are confident to grow furthermore in the coming years. Today, India is a huge sea of opportunities for startups and new age businesses like Uber Eats. We thank all our restaurant and delivery partners, all our happy consumers and look forward to your continuous support.

Uber Eats has gained great momentum in India and is one of its fastest growing markets in the Asia Pacific region. We look forward to accelerating this growth further on and India has huge opportunities to offer. Increased aspirations, a land of millennials, sky rocketing number of consumers going online, and fast paced internet and mobile penetration – it is a perfect concoction for Uber Eats to invest in India and tap on smaller yet upcoming educational and business hubs. And that’s the next step for Uber Eats.

Uber Eats Growth Story

Uber Eats Milestones

  • Launched in Mumbai in May 2017; India is the fastest growing market in APAC and has expanded to 13 cities in 12 months.
  • Appointed Bhavik Rathod, as the Head of Uber Eats for India, one of the almost five years back.
  • Shiv Sagar, Chaayos, The Bohri Kitchen were some of the first restaurants that were on-boarded on the platform. Today there are over 12000 restaurant partners across the 13 cities in India.
  • Pooja Rani from Chandigarh was the first woman to join Uber Eats as a female delivery partner.

What India Eats

This past year, Uber Eats has discovered some interesting food habits of Indians, let’s take a tasty trip down memory lane:

  • Winner, winner Chicken dinner? Across north and the south and the diversity in between, Indians expressed one common dish that they just couldn’t resist – the Chicken biryani was the hot favourite dish amongst Indians was the most ordered item in India on Uber Eats
  • Think you splurge way too much to fulfill your sugar cravings? Think again. An eater in Bangalore ordered ice-cream worth INR 11,341.
  • Keeping up with the ongoing cricket fever, 15th April 2018 was the hungriest day for all our Eaters in India as Uber Eats made the maximum trips in a single day.
  • The most gigantic order delivered by Uber Eats was on 10th March 2018, when a consumer called for 143 pieces of Rawa masala dosa, taking our delivery services to newer heights.

|In: Technology|Last Updated: | 0 Comments

Being in the thick of the food industry, Swiggy took a deep dive into its orders to understand what the nation was Swiggy-ing through 2017. Here’s a look at some of the interesting food trends that Swiggy discovered across seven Indian cities.

Over the past couple of years, India has witnessed a growing appetite for both Indian and international cuisine. In 2017, while Indians showed an interest in exploring and experimenting with their food choices, most stayed indigenous as desi dishes topped the list of most ordered food items online.

Biryani Continues to Rule

According to Swiggy’s order analysis, Chicken Biryani continued to rule the palate. Masala Dosa, Butter Naan, Tandoori Roti and Paneer Butter Masala rounded off the top five most ordered items of 2017.

Most Searched Food Item in India

While Pizza did not rank amongst the top five most ordered items, it was the most searched for. In fact, Indians have searched for it over 5 lakh times! The other searched items include Burger, Chicken, Cake and Momos.

When Hunger Strikes Most

Leaving its mark on the calendar, 3rd December saw maximum foodies order online [on Swiggy]. Considering the soaring temperatures during Indian summers, juices and shakes saw a 40 percent increase in average monthly orders during the months of March, April and May.

Overall, Swiggy’s order analysis highlighted India’s love of logging on and dining in across Bangalore, Mumbai, Delhi- NCR, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Chennai and Pune. The analysis includes meal categories, late-night ordering, snacking, upcoming food trends, desserts, healthy and international cuisine.

Here is a look at what foodies gorged on in 2017

When Does India Eat Its Meals?

  • Breakfast: Masala Dosa, Idli and Vada rule breakfast menus for most Indians. Breakfast is usually ordered at around 9.30am nationally. Chennai starts its day the earliest by ordering its breakfast at around 9.20am with some Pongal, the most preferred breakfast item in the city.
  • Lunch & Dinner: For primary meals like lunch and dinner, most people preferred Biryanis (chicken, mutton & veg) followed by Paneer Butter Masala and Masala Dosa, Dal Makhani and Chicken Fried Rice. Most lunch orders are seen at around 1.15pm. Coming to dinners, Mumbaikars seem to be the last ones at the dinner table with maximum dinner orders being placed at 8.58pm. 
  • Snacks: In 2017, Indians munched the most on Pav Bhaji, French Fries, Samosas, Chicken Roll, Chicken Burger and Bhel Puri. Average time for snacks is 5.03pm. 
  • Late night: The top late-night orders included comfort foods such as Chicken Biryani, French Fries, Butter Chicken and sweet items like Death by Chocolate [chocolate sundae] and Nutella Brownie. Hyderabad tops the charts in making the most late-night orders followed by Bangalore and Delhi.

Ordering in is the In-Thing Across Cities

  • The Mumbai Foodie: While most cities had Chicken Biryani as their most ordered food item, Mumbaikars stuck to ordering their staple – Pav Bhaji. The hungriest areas in Mumbai were Bandra West followed by Powai and Andheri West
  • The Delhi Foodie: Delhi and Gurgaon chose to order more of Dal Makhani and Naan, suggesting that local cuisines in each of these regions take precedence. On the other hand, New Delhi also sees the maximum amount of Pasta being ordered vis-à-vis other cities. The areas that witnessed maximum orders in Delhi and Gurgaon are Janakpuri, Greater Kailash, Dwarka and Cyber City, DLF Phase 4, Palam Vihar respectively
  • The Hyderabad Foodie: The city is undoubtedly the Biryani Capital of India. Biryani orders especially saw an increase in the months of June and October, possibly owing to the festivals of Eid and Diwali. There were over 20 varieties of Biryani that Hyderabadis ordered through Swiggy. The areas that witnessed maximum orders in Hyderabad are Madhapur, Banjara Hills and Kondapur.
  • The Bangalore Foodie: Most Bangaloreans prefer South-Indian basics for breakfast and Chicken Biryani for meals. The city ranks second to Hyderabad in ordering highest Chinese food such as Manchow soup, Noodles and Fried Rice. Interestingly, Mumbai’s ever-famous Vada Pav is amongst the top five most ordered snack items in Bangalore. Indiranagar, Koramangala and HSR are the areas that witness maximum number of orders in Bangalore.
  • The Kolkata Foodie: Most folks from the City of Joy preferred to order Biryanis and Fried Rice for their meals and Kachoris for breakfast and snacks. During Durga Puja, Kolkata’s most festive occasion, orders for sweets & desserts rise by 8 percent compared to the other cities. Central Kolkata, South Kolkata and Salt Lake are the hungriest areas in city. 
  • The Chennai Foodie: Pongal and Biryanis sum up the meals for most Chennaites. Areas such as Adyar, OMR Perungudi and Alwarpet see maximum foodies ordering-in.
  • The Pune Foodie: Pune is the city that prefers Dal Khichdi, over Biryani for lunch. They also like to order shakes such as Mango, Strawberry and Chocolate.  Areas such as Kothrud, Baner and Viman Nagar see maximum online ordering.

India’s Dessert Affair

Indians are very passionate about their sweet indulgences and any occasion is incomplete without a meetha accompaniment. Indians love Swiggy-ing desserts like Gulab Jamun, Double Ka Meetha and Rasmalai on a regular basis. When it comes to ice-creams Death by Chocolate, Tender Coconut Ice cream, and Brownie Fudge Sundae are some of the top-picks.

Swiggy’s order analysis suggests desserts are a woman’s best friend, as Indian women tend to order way more desserts than Indian men. The analysis also highlighted that the country’s startup capital, Bangalore is big on ice-creams, followed by Hyderabad and Mumbai.

Healthy Food Options Took the Center Stage

Consumers are taking a holistic approach towards healthy eating and looking at options that are a combination of health and taste. Roasted Chicken Salad tops the charts and is the most ordered choice of food amongst the health aficionados in most cities of India, while Bangaloreans stick to juices. Ironically Hyderabad, the city that consumes most Chicken Biryani is also the city that orders most healthy items. Superfood items such as Brown Rice Chicken, Chicken Oats Momos and Oats Banana Date Smoothies are also gaining popularity amongst health food lovers in India. Men between the age group of 25-34 years contribute the most to healthy food orders.

Further, most cities tend to order more non-vegetarian items than vegetarian. Overall, about 57 percent of orders were non-vegetarian and 43 percent vegetarian. while Bangalore topped the list for highest non- vegetarian orders, Pune is the only city that saw more vegetarian orders.

2017- Year of the Rooster

Chicken, by far, is India’s most loved meat as Swiggy’s order analysis finds that Chicken Biryani tops most meals, Chicken Fried Rice tops the list of Asian food items and Roast Chicken Salad tops the list for healthy food Items. After Chicken Biryani, Chicken 65 is the most ordered chicken item nationally. Bangalore & Chennai love their Chicken Lollipops, Hyderabad digs into Chicken 65, Delhi and Gurgaon love Butter Chicken while Mumbai and Kolkata stick to Roasted Chicken Sub and Chicken Momos respectively.

Bowled Over

Quick to jump on to the bowl trend, Hyderabad emerged as the bowl capital of India. Other cities like Pune, Chennai, Kolkata and Mumbai followed suit. Some of the popular bowls ordered are Fruit Bowl, Mexican Burrito Bowl, Rajma-Chawal Bowl, Paneer Hearty Bowl and Manchurian Bowl. Indians also see value in ordering combo meals such mini meals, Rajasthani masala paratha meal and nov-veg meals. Chennai ranks highest in ordering meals.

These were some of the dishes that kept foodies going in 2017.

|In: Food-Commerce|Last Updated: | 0 Comments

Swiggy, India’s largest food ordering and delivery platform today announced a first-of-its-kind partnership with Sodexo, the leader in employee benefits and rewards. With this integration, over 3 million Sodexo users across India can now use their Sodexo Meal Cards on Swiggy to order in from a variety of restaurants.

Over the years, there has been a steady shift in corporate ordering trends with office-goers increasingly ordering food online on platforms like Swiggy. Keeping in mind this growing user base, this partnership offers the maximum benefit to those who use their Sodexo Meal Cards only to purchase food and non-alcoholic drinks both at work and home. Additionally, by enabling this convenient and tax-saving payment option of Sodexo Meal Cards, Swiggy is providing consumers with a fast and secure way to pay for a wide variety of meals.

Talking about the partnership, Srivats TS, VP, Marketing, Swiggy said

Swiggy has become an integral part of the consumer’s lives today. This is especially true with the growing working population and millennials who are always looking for convenient food ordering options that are both time-saving and hassle-free. This collaboration with Sodexo is in perfect alignment with what Swiggy strives to provide its users – superior value and the best food ordering experience.

Stephane Michelin, CEO Sodexo Benefits & Rewards Services India, added

Being the leader in employee benefits, we always look for opportunities to enhance the experience of our 3 million+ daily consumers in India. The Sodexo Meal Card works on a 100% tax compliant proprietary network and hence this partnership with Swiggy will give greater access to our consumers, especially the always-on millennials, to order food from the thousands of restaurants in their network using the Sodexo Meal Card.

Request for Sodexo as a payment option on online platforms has been a long-time ask from consumers. Considering the synergies between the two companies with regards to high service levels and customer focus, Swiggy is the first restaurant marketplace in India to offer this additional payment option to its users. Through this integration, Sodexo’s 3 million daily users can avail exciting offers, great service and lightning fast deliveries from over 20,000 restaurants on Swiggy.

Swiggy users can avail a special introductory discount of 20% when they use their Sodexo Meal Cards for the first time. Coupon code : Sodexo. Valid until January 31, 2018.

|In: acquisition|Last Updated: | 0 Comments

Swiggy, India’s largest food ordering and delivery platform announced that it has acqui-hired Bangalore-based gourmet Asian food startup 48East, founded by food industry veterans Joseph Cherian and Nabhojit Ghosh.

Both will join Swiggy’s New Supply business line. As COO of the New Supply business line, Cherian’s expertise in the food infrastructure space will further strengthen Swiggy’s focus on solving for gaps in consumer supply through various strategic initiatives. This includes the recently launched Swiggy Access, where the company brings a variety of food to consumers by enabling plug-and-play expansion for restaurant partners in different areas.

While the food landscape in the country rapidly expands, numerous areas and scenarios or use cases remain under-served. Over the years, Swiggy has been exploring innovative ways to address this by providing solutions for the availability, quality and convenience of food. With Cherian and Ghosh, the company will be able to take this a notch higher as it looks to serve consumers more efficiently and grow the market.

Talking about the acqui-hire, Sriharsha Majety, CEO, Swiggy said

With their deep understanding of the food space and an impressive track record of delivering a great consumer experience, the 48East team will equip Swiggy with additional capabilities. We are excited to work with them towards our vision of changing the way India eats.

|In: Accelerator|Last Updated: | 0 Comments

FoodCloud, India’s fastest growing marketplace for home chefs has been accepted into Food-X, Global Food Innovation Accelerator. Food-X invests and partners with companies from across the food supply chain and helps them grow rapidly by deploying investment and some of the best mentors in the food industry.

Food-X’s parent company, SOSV is a global accelerator VC with a 250 million dollar funds under management dedicated to finding & accelerating 150 startups in some of the most human critical industries annually. FoodCloud was a top choice from more than one thousand applicants, joining because of it’s scalable business model that empowers independent entrepreneurs, the largest proportion of which are female.

Andrew Ive, Managing Director at Food-X, responsible for building, innovating and supporting the emerging Food-X ecosystem, said

The factors which impressed us most about FoodCloud were the committed team and their passion to bring great healthy fresh home cooked food to the world by empowering new entrepreneurs and in particular, women.

FoodCloud brings 1500 registered home chefs and their expertise to their customers in Delhi, NCR and Kolkata, serving more than 15,000 monthly meals. Customers now have the ability to order delicious, fresh and healthy home cooked food 30% cheaper than restaurants.

Food Cloud is growing quickly with 1500+ registered chefs. The company was co-founded by Vedant Kanoi, Sanjhi Rajgarhia and Shamit Khemka. Shamit is a founding investor who is runs the successful IT outsourcing company, SynapseIndia with 350+ employees.

Sanjhi Rajgarhia responsible for Operations and Marketing for FoodCloud, said

Food-X is a fantastic opportunity for FoodCloud. We already have the foundation to become the the customer choice in the food delivery market in India and, if we continue to put the customer first, then the world. In just a week, we have learnt so much from the very experienced mentors who are giving us one on one time to help us identify the best way forward for our company. It’s truly an exciting time for FoodCloud!

Thus far, FoodCloud has successfully delivered over 150,000 meals. FoodCloud is also a part of the Start Up India Programme run by the Government of India and the Ministry of Commerce & Industry.

|In: startups|Last Updated: | 0 Comments

Swiggy, India’s largest food ordering and delivery platform, announced the launch of its food ordering and delivery service in Ahmedabad. After continued success in Mumbai, Delhi-NCR, Bengaluru, Chennai, Pune, Hyderabad, and Kolkata, Swiggy is now expanding its operations to Ahmedabad – the food-lover’s hub.

Continuing with its superior consumer experience that has become synonymous with the brand, Swiggy is bringing the choicest food options at the doorsteps of Amdavadis. These include a range of legendary eateries, trendy new cafes, multi-cuisine food trucks and national and international Quick Service Restaurants [QSRs] across areas such as Prahladnagar, Vastrapur and Navrangpura.  Around 300 of the city’s restaurants are already available on the food ordering and delivery platform.

Srivats TS, Vice President – Marketing at Swiggy, said

Adavadis are passionate about their food, which is as rich and vibrant as the city itself. With Swiggy’s lightning fast and hassle-free ordering and delivery service, food-lovers in the city can now enjoy food from the best neighbourhood restaurants with just a touch of a button.

Rushad Jinwala, owner of Tomato’s, said

As a popular restaurant in Ahmedabad, we are passionate about the dishes we serve to our customers. Partnering with Swiggy allows us to focus on making great food while they take care of ordering and delivery, helping us reach more customers.

Over the years, Swiggy has become a loved consumer brand by bringing convenience, choice, reliability and a great food-ordering experience. Recognising Ahmedabad’s love for food and its fast-changing taste, Swiggy now brings its signature offerings to the city.

Swiggy will deliver numerous benefits to both restaurants and foodies in Ahmedabad

Swiggy for Food-lovers – Swiggy connects foodies with the choicest restaurant options, including over 300 of the best restaurants in the city, including Cafe Coffee Day, McDonalds, Zen Cafe, No Mad Baker, Melt in and Mad by Tomato’s. To ensure consumers have access to the best restaurants in the city, Swiggy will deliver from a wider radius of as much as 6 kms. Consumers can not only order from these restaurants without any restrictions on the minimum order value, but also track their orders live on the Swiggy app. With the fastest food delivery service in the country, Amdavadis will now have their food delivered at a lightning speed.

Swiggy for Restaurants – Swiggy provides city-restaurants with the tools and technology to reach new customers. In addition to driving order volumes through the platform, partner restaurants can strengthen their delivery services, brand equity and recall value by coming on to the online delivery platform.

|In: startups|Last Updated: | 0 Comments

Sattviko, one of the fastest growing food companies in India, has been awarded as the most prominent food startup in the Agri, Food, & Forestry Products segment at The National Entrepreneurship Awards. The National Entrepreneurship Awards have been instituted by the Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship [MSDE] to encourage a culture of entrepreneurship across the country.

The award ceremony was presided over by Arun Jaitley Minister of Fiinance & Corporate Affairs, Shri Dharmendra Pradhan Honourable Minister of Petroleum & Natural gas & skill development & Entrepreneurship, Anantkumar Hegde Honourable minister of skill Development & Entrepreneurship and Chanda Kochhar, MD & CEO ICICI Bank.

Started in the year 2013 with quick service restaurants, Sattviko has grown exceptionally to becoming a healthy lifestyle brand offering packaged food products that combines the goodness of age old wisdom of Ayurveda with the unique taste and flavor of contemporary cuisines. Sattviko has a range of ethnic product categories including Roasted Makhana, Khakhra Chips, Ajwaini Flax Seeds, Dry Mango, Khakhra Chips, Gur Chana, Salsa Almonds, etc. Sattviko fosters wellness and shares Indianness by incorporating modern flavors on traditional ethnic snacks.

Commenting on the recognition, Prasoon Gupta, Co-Founder of Sattviko, said

We are elated to be awarded as the most prominent food startup in the country. Since our inception, our focus has been on delivering an exceptional experience to our customers who are looking to adopt healthy lifestyle and its practices. Today’s customers are experimental in trying new cuisines yet the familiarity of certain flavours remains the requirement. Sattviko brings the benefit of both with its age-old recipes and exotic preparation methods.

Sattviko products are currently available at modern retailers such as Metro Cash & Carry, More, Hypercity and in general trade across Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Chandigarh, Amritsar, Jalandhar, Kolkata, Lucknow, Gurgaon, Faridabad and Surat.

The National Entrepreneurship Awards seek to recognise the efforts and achievements of exceptional entrepreneurs and those individuals and organisations who are working in the field of entrepreneurship development. The Awards also seek to highlight models of excellence for others to emulate and improve upon. The winners were selected through a three stage rigorous selection process. Winning individuals/ enterprises were given a prize amount of Rs. 5 lakhs.

About Sattviko

Sattviko started in the year 2013, and has been on an epic ride ever since. From launching the quick service restaurants and fine dine chains to becoming synonymous as a healthy lifestyle brand, it has stayed true to its core beliefs of delivering an exceptional experience to customers who are looking to adopt a healthier lifestyle but don’t want to compromise on the taste. Sattviko ethnic Indian snacks while being roasted & baked without any preservatives or artificial flavours provides a very healthy alternative to the current fried options available in the market. For more information, please visit Sattviko

|In: Food-Commerce|Last Updated: | 0 Comments

Ketchupp, a technology company in food discovery space, has rapidly grown to 1.04 million users showing 16x growth in last 6 months [from 60K users in October 16 to 1.04 million users in April 17]. It has been witnessing strong growth based on automated platform which helps them track trends stitching with their in-house food IP data and algorithms.

Image Source – Ketchupp

Ketchupp works on a 3C concept of Content, Community & Commerce on the lines of global players such as Houzz, Polyvore, Motoroso who had great success and are aligned towards conversational
commerce.

Chirag Taneja, co-founder of Ketchupp said

With AI starting to interpret images, we are not far from wherein technology would be interpreting that you are on your way home or what is available in your kitchen. With all that info available readily, one would need to map consumer food behavior to suggest/recommend ‘What to EAT’ basis your food preferences and people who have similar tastes/profiles. On enterprise front, we are doing initial testing/pilot runs with large companies in developing capabilities around sales forecasting, cross sell analytics, etc.

More than 50% of the consumers come from ‘super’ metros of Delhi, Mumbai and Bengaluru and remaining comes from other metros of the country.  Ketchupp [mobile first, website only food discovery platform] in India is solving the consumer’s problem of ‘What to Eat’ by focusing on 3 micro moments in the consumer’s journey i.e. a) Consumer wants to know about food b) Consumer wants to plan around food c) Consumer wants to buy/order food. The company leverages AI driven data mining algorithms to enable a consumer discover awesome food that he/she will love to eat.

Ketchupp had earlier raised seed round funding led by India Quotient. The team is investing this fund to make a robust product through analytics, big data and enabling tech solutions.

Ketchupp works on a very differentiated, efficient and tech-driven business model wherein mined consumer insights are mapped with Ketchupp’s in house food IP data, thereby solving consumer’s pain point in a meaningful way.

The small team based out of New Delhi has impressively scaled to 9 cities with a monthly [April 17] user base of 1.04 million Ketchupp has turned out to be a boon not only for the consumer but also for the food brands. As India’s biggest food discovery platform, it has enabled brands to communicate to their relevant audiences in a cost effective manner.

The need gap for a food discovery player in market can be gauged by not only the search volume of food related keywords searched on Google but also by increasing number of users seeking food recommendations on social media from their trusted friend network.

Ketchupp is actually an instant answer to three micro moments in food a) User wants to know about food – What is a gluten free diet? b) User wants to plan around food – What should be the menu for next week’s House party at my home and c) User wants to buy/order food – I want to have cheese burst pizza in office right now.

Ketchupp’s new feature – Meal Finder is also getting substantial traction from users other than the already popular National Foodie Calendar [Celebration of 365 days of 2017 around food].

Ketchupp founded 1.5 years ago by Narender Kumar [Civil Engineer from IIT Delhi], Abdul Khalid [Computer Science Engineer from IIT Delhi] and Chirag Taneja [MBA from FMS, Delhi] intends to be the one stop destination for food lovers in the country.