Zomato, one of the largest online food delivery businesses,has reported in a series on Tweets that business has reached the highs reachedbefore the lockdown restrictions hit the economy. In addition, some cities aredoing 20% higher business than was done before the lockdown.
Swiggy, another worthy contender in the food deliveryaggregator space has reported similar trends. The company reports that itsplatform has reach 80-85% of the business it did before the restrictions.
One reason for the business growth seems to bulk orderinge.g. when more than one customer’s orders are clubbed and sent as one order onthe platform.
Zomato proudly claimed that there was not a single reported caseof COVID-19 transmission through their food delivery or their agents.
The company also thanked its delivery partners, who arealways on the frontlines of the industry, for their hard work.
The restaurants, however, were not equally enthusiastic. Thedata from the National Restaurant Association of India (NRAI) indicate a lowerand varied growth in the major Indian cities, and agree that the average ordersize has gone up.
Thus, overall the industry may be looking up, but therestaurants are either shutting down, or scaling down operations, or shutting dine-in,all the while when a couple of popular brands are getting more business.
Rohan Agarwal of Redseer, a management consulting company inIndia, claims that the Indian Premier League (IPL) is a major attraction andincreasing business. He claims that once the Indian public is able to let go ofthe concern of COVID-19 contamination through food, then the business will increasefurther.