Zomato's new pilot on inter-city food delivery is not an easy nut to crack

Last week, Zomato said it is foraying into the same model, piloting food delivery with 'Intercity Legends'

It took almost 20 days for Samiran Sengupta, co-founder of JustMyRoots, to convince the owners of the famed Lucknow-based Tunday Kababi to join his platform that specialises in intercity food delivery.  

“When we first approached them, they said they were not interested in joining an online platform,” Sengupta recalls. “They said their band and the trust in it had been built over generations, and that it would take all of one day to ruin it. We told them we’d deliver their food to any of their friends or family and they can then corroborate if its quality and taste was the same or not.”

That’s how JustMyRoots went about convincing restaurants that’ve been part of India’s culinary history to come onboard its platform. It has been in the business of doing what Zomato is just about beginning to test.

Gurugram-based JustMyRoots has been delivering fresh, cooked meals from renowned eateries across cities for four years now – something that restaurant aggregator and food delivery platform Zomato recently grabbed headlines for. Zomato, which is also headquartered in Gurugram, has just launched a pilot project, “Intercity Legends”, to deliver food intercity. Besides JustMyRoots, Kolkata-based Tastes2Plate, too has been delivering food intercity. Its founders, though, could not be contacted despite repeated attempts.

A Zomato spokesperson says, “At the moment, the pilot is only in select locations of Gurugram and South Delhi. That said, any airport city could be a potential market. Over time, we will keep taking inputs from customers and keep adding to our supply.” Currently, food is being delivered “from Kolkata, Hyderabad, Lucknow, Jaipur, Bengaluru, Mathura, Chennai, Agra and Bhubaneswar”.

While launching the intercity food delivery services, Zomato Founder and CEO Deepinder Goyal had said in a blog post that the company would leverage its vast network of restaurants and delivery partners, and its “deep understanding of food technology”, to deliver food in 24 hours.

The questions, though, are: How will Zomato deliver on this promise? What will be the logistics involved, and how will quality and taste be ensured? Because, for the food to live up to its popularity and possibly nostalgia, the dish has to retain its original flavour when it is ferried from one city to the other.

Existing companies like JustMyRoots could offer some lessons.

Sengupta says for intercity food delivery to be a success, technology plays a critical part. The food quality, its flavours and also its aroma, all have to be maintained.

“We spent a lot of time, effort and money in getting the tech in place,” he says. “When we started, there was no way of sending food long distances without freezing it. But we never freeze the food; we manage a specific temperature,” he adds. The reason refrigeration doesn’t work is because after reheating, the food loses its original taste, he says.

Instead, JustMyRoots says it employs tech that keeps the food in the 5-8-degree range so that it maintains its moisture. Sengupta says the tech platform has three layers: first is a climate-controlled environment; second is robust packaging; and the third is its own intellectual property (IP).

He adds that the company will soon come out with two IPs. The first, on keeping the food fresh for 72 hours. That means a Tier 3 city in the deep south can order something from Amritsar and still get the food fresh. The second IP would be on how to keep the food hot for eight hours.

The Zomato spokesperson, too, says they will “avoid freezing to retain the taste and flavours. We also avoid food that is very dependent on texture (like a pizza).” About the logistics, the spokesperson says, “Food is freshly prepared by the restaurant and packed in reusable and tamper-proof containers to keep it safe during air transit. State-of-the-art mobile refrigeration technology preserves food without the need to freeze it or add any kind of preservatives.” The official says that before beginning the pilot, the company “also conducted food trials and lab tests to ensure food tastes great”. 

JustMyRoots, which has been operating in this space for a few years now, has about 600 restaurants on its platform and gets some 4,500-5,000 orders per day, which, the company says, will go up to 25k-30k by the end of this fiscal year. It picks food up from 19 cities and delivers to 30.

Sengupta maintains they work only with the original brands. For instance, of the many Tunday Kababi in Lucknow, the one on the JustMyRoots platform is the original one.

The other crucial aspect is the sorting and delivery of food once it reaches the destination city. In the case of JustMyRoots, all food orders coming to a city first reach the distribution centre. Dishes from different source locations are sorted and then sent to customers.

JustMyRoots works with a lot of third-party delivery players. Generally, it has two or three partners in each city where it is present. They’re the ones who pick the orders up from the airport and deliver them to customers.

Pricing

According to Inc42, a media platform that tracks Indian start-ups, people would end up paying 2x for some dishes on Zomato’s Intercity Legends pilot project.

Says the Zomato spokesperson: “The restaurant and delivery partner determine the price. That said, given the cost of air transport and high-quality packaging, the prices are slightly more than what you would pay for local delivery.” 

“Overall, our approach is to bring efficiencies and ensure the pricing is not prohibitive. We believe that over time, customers will place larger orders and economies of scale will kick in,” the spokesperson adds.

On JustMyRoots, meanwhile, pricing is simple, says Sengupta. Unlike food delivery aggregators, JustMyRoots does not charge a commission from restaurants. “We are not in the commission game. We are a platform that brings these restaurants together. The pricing is transparent; our delivery charges are basically the cost of the logistics. And these are shown upfront,” he adds.

For instance, galawati kebab from Tunday Kababi costs Rs 509 for eight pieces. The final amount is Rs 817.88, which includes Rs 210 for logistics and 98.88 taxes. One can order for any amount but for orders above Rs 750, JustMyRoots has no shipping charges.

This correspondent ordered two dishes and the bill was above Rs 750, so the shipping cost was zero. However, when this writer tried to place an order on the following day as well, on Wednesday (September 7), no option was available. That’s the other challenge. Since these orders are met via air transport, having a daily flight to a customer’s city is crucial.

Conceding that this is a challenge, Sengupta also draws attention to the need for strong packaging. “The person handling the package at the airport luggage segment is not going to look at the fragile sticker. I have seen some of the packaging that food aggregators do, and it cannot sustain the travel,” he adds.

Competition

For Sengupta, Zomato entering the intercity food delivery arena is not a concern. “We always knew that the Zomatos and Swiggys of the world would enter this segment someday. But we are at least 12-18 months ahead of what Zomato has plans of,” he says, adding, “They are talking of 24-hour delivery. We deliver in 12 hours. They are just looking at the foodies in India. We are already delivering to GCC (Gulf Cooperation Council) countries and have plans of entering the UK and the US.”

JustMyRoots is now in talks with investors to raise Series A funding. But more importantly, it is looking to increase its restaurant base.