Is Zomato putting pressure on its partners by starting instant 10-minute food delivery?

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New Delhi, March 22

Online food delivery platform Zomato will soon start instant 10-minute food delivery, company founder Deepinder Goyal said on Monday.

In a blog post, he however said, the company is not putting any pressure on its delivery partners to deliver food faster but will achieve the target by relying on a dense finishing stations' network, which is located in close proximity to high-demand customer neighbourhoods.

Explaining why the company is getting into instant delivery, Goyal said, "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."

After becoming a frequent customer of Blinkit, one of Zomato's investments in the quick commerce space, Goyal said he 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," he asserted.

Sharing how the 10-minute deliveries will be achieved, he said, "Each of our finishing stations will house bestseller items (Rs20-30 dishes) from various restaurants based on demand predictability and hyperlocal preferences. Luckily, the experience of having delivered 1.35 billion orders across India over the years makes our job a little easier. "

Clarifying that Zomato doesn't put any pressure on delivery partners to deliver food faster to fulfil our quick delivery promise, he said," adding, "Nor do we penalise delivery partners for late deliveries."

"The delivery partners are not informed of the promised time of delivery. Time optimisation does not happen on the road, and does not put any lives at risk."

Sophisticated dish-level demand prediction algorithms, and future-ready in-station robotics are employed to ensure that food is sterile, fresh and hot at the time it is picked by the delivery partner, he added.

Goyal further said, "We are going to pilot Zomato Instant with four stations in Gurugram from next month onwards."

The Tribune