
India’s quick food delivery face-off: Whose data is it anyway?

Summary
- If quick-food platforms are breaking the rules of fair competition, as restaurants allege, they should be hauled up by antitrust authorities. But data-driven innovation is welcome. It will favour consumers and help the Indian market evolve.
That successful online aggregators would loom ever larger over the small suppliers enrolled on their platforms was obvious all along.
Equally foreseeable was how this would tilt power equations in favour of any big consumer interface, whose potential role as a market gateway was a big draw for its investors in the first place.
Suppliers might be called ‘partners,’ but it’s an uneven partnership. But does it call for antitrust scrutiny?
The latest to feel the heat are eateries worried by quick-food delivery services launched by online majors, which they fear will source food from third-party suppliers and even set up their own ‘cloud kitchens’ (like dark stores), leaving them in the lurch.
Also read: Quick commerce in India: Boon or bubble waiting to burst?
Quick-food delivery is an offspring of Q-commerce. Its pioneer Zepto came up with a ‘cafe app’ offering beverages and edibles sent across within 10 minutes.
Restaurant food deliverer Swiggy made a similar offer with its Snacc app, while the Zomato-owned Q-com player Blinkit unveiled Bistro to contest this space.
Calling these services an “abuse of dominance," the National Restaurant Association of India (NRAI) reportedly wants to sue Swiggy and Zomato for allegedly “taking unfair advantage of our data and entering our territory."
As quick food delivery is a nascent business, how it will evolve is not yet clear. The promise of swiftness, which sets such a service apart, implies that preparation time must be kept minimal.
It is thus best suited to heat-and-serve items rather than made-to-order dishes. The NRAI has no objection to any speedy options offered by Swiggy and Zomato that generate orders for restaurants.
Its ire is aimed at cloud kitchens for food delivery under their private labels. If a big company has enough data to map a locality’s patterns of choice, the Law of Large Numbers would assure reliable forecasts of what should be kept ready—and in what ratio—to despatch.
Low waste could conceivably combine with centralized input sourcing and bulk discounts to spell lower prices without quality and hygiene gaps.
Also read: Quick comm makes a dash for food deliveries
Broad cues could be taken from the quick-service model of McDonald’s. Its kitchens are centrally supplied and designed for high volumes, with hot food rolled out in peak hours to meet data-projected demand, rather than actual orders placed.
Such efficiency could work to the consumer’s benefit. Of course, what exactly to produce is the key enabler—what the NRAI considers “our data."
As aggregators have a right to use the data they aggregate, its ownership is clear, even if it’s drawn from restaurant menu orders. Moreover, data-driven innovation is vital to the evolution of this market and the entry of big players cannot be barred.
That said, India’s antitrust law could still be invoked if eateries are bullied by platforms. If any online service has monopoly heft, the legal bar should be kept that much lower to check for unfair practices.
Competition authorities must hear the NRAI out. Are there signs of predatory pricing, for example, with investor funds being ‘burnt’ to acquire customers?
Also read: Quick delivery, quick returns: How Instamart, Zepto and Blinkit plan to take on e-commerce giants
Have recipes and other forms of intellectual property been encroached? Meanwhile, as the potential of quick food delivery lies in hot-sellers that can be churned out in large volumes, the choice on offer is likely to remain limited.
Eateries would still have space to specialize in other stuff. A unique menu that others cannot copy, after all, is what sets a restaurant apart. And if our market splits into taste-bud satisfaction and efficient nutrition as distinct segments, it’ll only reflect evolving demand.