Zomato to deliver food in 10 minutes, says ‘30-minute delivery is too slow’

Zomato founder and CEO Deepinder Goyal on Monday announced that its platform will deliver food in 10 minutes soon, without compromising on food quality and delivery partner safety.

Announcing the launch of 'Zomato Instant', Goyal in a blogpost said, nobody in the world has so far delivered hot and fresh food in under 10 minutes at scale, and the company is eager to be the first to create this category, globally.

Zomato said the instant delivery will be without compromises and is based on eight principles, which include highest quality of fresh food and world class hygiene practices among others.

"Each of our finishing stations will house bestseller items (~20-30 dishes) from various restaurants based on demand predictability and hyperlocal preferences," Zomato said.

On Monday, Zomato shares closed 0.80% lower at ₹80.20 apiece on NSE.

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 added.

Zomato further added that due to demand predictability at a hyperlocal level, it expects that the price for the customer will get significantly reduced, while the absolute margin/income for its restaurant partners as well as delivery partners, will remain the same.

Zomato was among the first generation of internet unicorns to tap India’s capital market after its $1.3 billion initial public offering in July last year.

The food delivery giant will pilot Zomato Instant with four stations in Gurugram from next month onwards. "This is one of the biggest endeavours towards our mission statement of “better food for more people,” it said.

Goyal stated 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."

"Innovating and leading from the front is the only way to survive (and therefore thrive) in the tech industry. And here we are… with our 10-minute food delivery offering – Zomato Instant," he added.