Sep 26, 2020
Entangling the world in its tentacles, the COVID-19 pandemic has tightened its grip on the entire world. During lockdown, with people forced to stay indoors and restaurant business closed, ordering food online has proved as a saviour for most of us. Owing to restrictions imposed due to the pandemic, people have heavily relied on online food delivery services to satisfy their cravings and hunger pangs.
A lot of discussions, webinars, exchange of dialogues, arguments has happened in the online food delivery service since the pandemic. In action by the food delivery systems, its sometime worked and sometime put off.
The prime online food delivery platforms viz Zomato and Swiggy initially saw a great plunge in receiving the orders during the initial phase of the lockdown. The people feared ordering thinking about the way it must have cooked, to add to that whether the delivery boys had maintain hygiene levels, later societies banned the entry of outsiders, led the online food delivery dip lower and lower. But it soon recovered with 75-80% of their pre -covid sales due to diversification of their business areas.
Quite a number of hotels and restaurants which were earlier not delivering online, modified their business models, and partnered with Swiggy and Zomato to prevent themselves from sinking and go out of business.
Not getting food orders, both food delivery giants ventured into the delivery of groceries and essential items, as the demand for groceries increased nationwide. The delivery apps also introduced zero contact delivery, by simultaneously following all the safety and hygienic protocols which boosted its delivery services.
Swiggy also introduced the feature of ‘Swiggy Genie’ to get orders from nearby stores, as well as send and receive parcels to the consumer’s door. The lockdown also witnessed the surge in demand for the other contenders in the business such as Dunzo, Grofers, Big Basket, Scootsy, Licious and iD fresh foods.
Likewise, many top-notch companies have ventured into the online delivery of food, groceries and essential items. For instance – Amazon launched its online food delivery service- Amazon Food in Bengaluru in June.
Tata Group’s Indian Hotels Company (IHCL) owns Taj Hotels, unveiled its online food delivery platform Qmin, which includes home delivery of food from the popular restaurants of its hotels. The service is operational in top 10 markets of India, including Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalore. Similarly, companies like Phone Pe, Curefit, StoreSe, Shopclues have stepped into the home delivery of essentials and groceries.
Facing and struggling the hurriedly changing government SOPs (Standard Operating Procedures), the ever-changing state government orders and fresh demands from consumers, in terms of quality and health requirements, have pushed food delivery apps into a state of flux, with new updates each day, on mergers, closures, launches and takeovers of food aggregator apps, resulting in a chaos in food industry.
A new concept of the delivery of DIY meal kits and DIY cocktail kits has surfaced during the lockdown. Restaurants are curating DIY meal kits which include the recipe as well as the mixes of their signature dishes, to give their customers a restaurant vibe. This trend has become extremely popular during lockdown, especially, in metros like Delhi and Bangalore.
Interestingly, there has been a significant rise in home chefs, who deliver homemade food to the customers and also senior citizen who remain stranded with children in another city due to randomly applied lockdown who could not make to their elders back at home.
These homemade chefs have bridged the gap left by restaurants and are faring extremely well by providing hygienic and tasty dishes at affordable rates, which has made them a hit amongst the consumers. Some of the most popular items include homemade farsan, chips-sticks, cakes, cookies, stew, chicken, mutton, regional snacks and many more