Deepinder Goyal, the founder of the food delivery service, said that ‘Zomato Instant’ will be first tested in Gurugram. The new plan can only be used for certain food items and in specific customer locations
A deliveryman working for Zomato, an online food delivery application, rides a motorbike along a street in Mumbai. AFP
“I started feeling 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.”
With these words, Zomato founder Deepinder Goyal on Monday announced that the online food delivery company would soon start delivering food in 10 minutes.
Announcement: 10 minute food delivery is coming soon on Zomato.
Food quality – 10/10
Delivery partner safety – 10/10
Delivery time – 10 minutesHere’s how Zomato Instant will achieve the impossible while ensuring delivery partner safety – https://t.co/oKs3UylPHh pic.twitter.com/JYCNFgMRQz
— Deepinder Goyal (@deepigoyal) March 21, 2022
The latest offering from the start-up is being called ‘Zomato Instant’ and the company will run a pilot project in Gurugram to test the model.
Sharing a link to an official blog post, Goyal wrote that with this new feature, the company will “achieve the impossible while ensuring delivery partner safety”.
We take a look at how ‘Zomato Instant’ will work and why it has been receiving some backlash.
How will ‘Zomato Instant’ work?
At the onset, Deepinder Goyal explained that the 10-minute food delivery was an answer to the customers wanting quicker results.
According to Goyal, the company will set up ‘finishing stations’ located in close proximity to high-demand customer neighbourhoods. These finishing stations will house bestseller items (20-30 dishes) from various restaurants based on demand predictability and hyperlocal preferences.
On Tuesday, further elaborating on the system, Goyal said that the 10-minute delivery service “would be for specific nearby locations, popular and standardised items only.”
A closer look at Zomato Instant shows that it’s following a similar model such as quick commerce firms like Zepto and Blinkit.
Goyal added that there would be no penalties for late deliveries and no incentives for on-time deliveries for both 10- and 30-minute deliveries.
The company also added that it would depend heavily on dish-level demand prediction algorithms and in-station robotics to ensure that the food is sterile, fresh, and hot at the time it is picked by the delivery partner.
Is there a need for 10-minute food deliveries?
The company’s founder said that he found the 30-minute delivery model to be slow and hence, this was an innovation in the sector.
“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,” Goyal said in his message.
He added that these 10-minute deliveries would lead to lesser time spent on the road per order.
Cooking up a storm
Shortly after Goyal made the announcement, people reacted to the news, but it was not all welcoming.
Suhel Seth took to Twitter saying that the new delivery offer was ‘both dangerous and unnecessary’.
The 10-minute delivery offer from @zomato is both dangerous and unnecessary: more than anything, it will endanger the lives of both riders as also people on roads and so something best avoided. No one is in such a rush or such an idiot to decide what to eat only 10 mins before!
— SUHEL SETH (@Suhelseth) March 22, 2022
Congress’ Karti P Chidambaram also took to Twitter to express his concerns. He said that the quick delivery plan would cause undue pressure on delivery executives. He stated he has also written to the government and has even raised the issue in Parliament.
This is absurd! It’s going to put undue pressure on the delivery personnel, who are not employees & who have no benefits or security, who have no bargaining power with @zomato I have raised this in Parliament & have written to the Govt. Will pursue this further. https://t.co/fH8yflloiY pic.twitter.com/PfQIe2nfR4
— Karti P Chidambaram (@KartiPC) March 21, 2022
Cyber security expert Jiten Jain was another who voiced his concern about the 10-minute delivery model.
. @deepigoyal: 10 mins sounds amazing as a customer. But honestly this would surely make your delivery staff tense and reckless..
Am sure, 30 mins is worth waiting for delicious food arriving at our doorsteps 🍺⏩🍟 https://t.co/8EfKKHNkPt
— Jiten Jain (@jiten_jain) March 21, 2022
And as all things go, the 10-minute model was savagely trolled on Twitter, inviting thousands of memes.
The topic #Zomato became a trending topic since the announcement and many people criticised the Zomato Instant food delivery service by using memes.
Another netizen posted this meme:
What do you think? Does food really require to be delivered in 10 minutes?
With inputs from agencies
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