
From Gondal's Coconut Culture to Hubli's Lucky Hotel, small-town eateries tap technology as food delivery soars

Summary
- As food and grocery delivery giants make deeper inroads, eateries and restaurants in small towns like Gujarat's Gondal and Karnataka's Hubli are reaching out to software providers such as DotPe, UrbanPiper, and PetPooja to automate and streamline their business processes for efficiency and scale.
Bengaluru: Folks in India's small towns are increasingly ordering in and dining out, mimicking their counterparts in metros and other large cities, where delivery giants such as Zomato and Swiggy have dramatically altered consumption patterns.
As food and grocery delivery giants make deeper inroads across the country, eateries and restaurants in small towns like Gujarat's Gondal and Karnataka's Hubli are reaching out to software providers such as DotPe, UrbanPiper, and PetPooja to automate and streamline their business processes for efficiency and scale.
Gondal's Coconut Culture, a restaurant serving global cuisines like Mexican and Italian, recently signed up with restaurant software provider PetPooja after hearing of the possibility of Zomato entering the city soon, its founder Pritesh Padhiyar told Mint.
“We want to be prepared [when Zomato comes in]. We are also set to launch a new restaurant under the Coconut Culture brand and have already discussed commercials with multiple software providers," Padhiyar said.
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These software companies offer restaurants a way to manage billing, inventory, and customer relationships through a single platform by offering tools customized to their size and needs. Some like PetPooja also offer employee payroll and invoicing services on their platform.
India’s food services market—which includes online ordering and dining out—is expected to nearly double to $152 billion by 2030 from the current $80 billion, per estimates by Redseer Strategy.
Driven by food and grocery delivery platforms such as Zomato, Swiggy, Blinkit, and Zepto, tier-II and tier-III towns are seeing consumption patterns similar to metro cities, bringing restaurants big business opportunity and convenience to consumers.
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“Across sectors, we have seen tier II+ cities increasingly have similar aspirations as those of consumers in metro or tier 1 cities, driven by social media influence and increased exposure to global cultures. We see similar trends in food delivery as well, however the consumption is more impacted by local availability of supply in sectors such as food which are local in nature, as compared to sectors like e-commerce where products are shipped across the country," Rohan Agarwal, partner at Redseer, said.
In recent weeks, there’s been heightened activity in the food delivery segment. Months after launching its 10-minute delivery offering Bolt, Swiggy rolled out a new app ‘Snacc’ for 15-minute delivery of snacks and beverages. In January, quick-commerce app Zepto Cafe was said to have crossed 50,000 orders per day within four weeks of launch, while Zomato-owned Blinkit unveiled ‘Bistro’ for 10-minute food delivery.
Zomato currently receives about 60% of its business from the top metros. “As the quality and supply of restaurants increases in tier-II and III markets, it is inevitable that they will surpass the contribution from metros," Zomato's food delivery head Rakesh Ranjan had told Mint earlier.
Also read | Small restaurants, cloud kitchens heating up competition: Zomato's Rakesh Ranjan
Need for speed
To be sure, restaurants in large cities have also been reorganizing processes to meet the growing need for faster food deliveries. Tiger Global-backed Wow! Momo Foods is working with vendors to design equipment to shorten the cooking time for processes such as steaming and frying, co-founder and chief executive Sagar Daryani said.
Coconut Culture is also looking to dedicate more workers for packing and sealing food orders and is looking to invest more into its hiring process to prioritize efficiency and skill, its founder Padhiyar said.
Even tiny eateries are taking faster preparation and packing seriously, according to Parthiv Patel, co-founder and chief executive of PetPooja told Mint. “We have received interest from restaurants making sales worth ₹50,000 a month. Single-outlet restaurants also want to reduce kitchen preparation time and make their invoicing and dining orders more seamless," Patel said.
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Hubli-based Lucky Hotel, a standalone restaurant serving Kannada delicacies, is regarded highly among office-goers in the area owing to its speedy service and affordable prices. Now, it is working with the local printing press to design eye-catching takeaway boxes and carry bags.
“The branding can help us form a better presence on Zomato and Swiggy. We don’t want to invest too much money right now, but just enough to have a logo and basic details like address and telephone number," its owner Vignesh M. said.
Software providers are seeing immense value in these markets as well. Currently, more than half of PetPooja’s revenue comes from tier-2 and tier-3 markets and is expected to grow, according to its founder. “Until last year, about 30% revenue came from these markets. As the food delivery segment grows and dining-out patterns evolve, these outlets will need to invest in reducing kitchen preparation time as well as work on brand building to stand out," Patel noted.