Zomato Instant promises restaurant deliveries in ten minutes

zomato instant ten minute delivery
Image by motortion | Bigstockphoto

Indian multinational restaurant aggregator and food delivery company Zomato has launched Zomato Instant, which aims to bring ten-minute deliveries to the food delivery space in India.

A number of companies are already offering ten-minute delivery services in the grocery space, such as Swiggy’s Instamart, Ola Dash, Zepto and even Zomato-backed Blinkit. But none offer the same service for restaurant orders. Zomato aims to be the first to do so.

“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,” Zomato Co-founder Deepinder Goyal wrote in a blogpost published on the company’s website.

“In addition to that, after becoming a frequent customer of Blinkit (one of Zomato’s investments in the quick commerce space), I started feeling that the 30-minute average delivery time by Zomato is too slow, and will soon have to become obsolete. If we don’t make it obsolete, someone else will,” Goyal added.

Zomato Instant promises to deliver 20-30 bestseller dishes to customers within ten minutes. The company said that it will pilot Zomato Instant with four stations in Haryana state’s Gurugram from next month onwards. Gurugram is known as the technology and financial hub of Northern India.

Goyal said that nobody in the world has so far delivered hot and fresh food in under ten minutes at scale, and Zomato is “eager to be the first to create this category, globally!”

Goyal said that if Zomato Instant is successful, it will have a significant impact on affordability with at least a 50% reduction in costs to the end-customer besides reducing delivery time. He added that the service would also allow the company to ensure highest grade ingredients and hygiene practices across the supply chain.

The announcement has been met with mixed reactions, with the Indian Federation of App-based Transport Workers (IFAT) asking Zomato to ensure that delivery workers are taken care of.

IFAT said that companies are trying to be the fastest to provide groceries and meals to acquire more customers, which puts the lives of delivery partners at stake.

Zomato also faced backlash from several social media users who say that such a service will push delivery partners into a tough and unsafe working environment.

Goyal, however, explained in a Twitter thread that ten-minute delivery will be as safe as 30-minute standard delivery, as Zomato is building new food stations to enable ten-minute service only for specific customer locations.

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