With Zomato On The Prowl, Swiggy Unveils New Personalised Food Discovery Feature

As competition intensifies in the food delivery space, foodtech startup Swiggy has unveiled a new feature called WhatTo Eat that allows users to explore options based on their mood and cravings. 

Accessible directly on Swiggy’s food ordering page, WhatToEat presents users with various food categories to choose from. Upon selection, the app suggests a list of 10 restaurant options that serve items from the selected category. The company claims that all the restaurants included in the list are organically populated and do not pay for their placement.

“With WhatToEat, Swiggy wants users to bid farewell to the time-consuming process of scrolling through endless restaurant options, checking numerous menus, and juggling multiple carts… The goal is to offer users a streamlined and efficient experience in discovering and choosing their meals,” said Rohit Kapoor, CEO of Swiggy’s food marketplace vertical, in a LinkedIn post. 

The move is likely part of Swiggy’s bid to offer enhanced and personalised food ordering experience to users while focussing on spurring revenues and increasing stickiness of customers.

Curiously, the new announcement comes barely a day after Zomato unveiled the multi-cart feature on its app. Earlier today, Swiggy’s listed rival also launched analytics platform ‘Zomato Food Trends’ to enable restaurant partners to make supposedly data-driven decisions.

The slew of launches come as the food delivery industry heads towards saturation and a slowdown, even as both Swiggy and rival Zomato look to gain incremental market share. 

Largely a duopoly, the India foodtech arena has seen Zomato and Swiggy fight pitched battles to reign supreme. While both companies have been loss-making entities, the funding winter has forced the two giants to recalibrate their strategy and focus more on turning profitable. 

As a result, both Zomato and Swiggy have undertaken a slew of initiatives to spur revenue and growth. Last month, Swiggy cofounder and CEO Sriharsha Majety said that the company had achieved profitability in its food delivery business, without offering any further insights. 

The very next day, Zomato released its financial results where it touted that its businesses, barring quick commerce vertical Blinkit, turned adjusted EBITDA positive in Q4 FY23, largely on the back of food delivery vertical. 

As the competition between Swiggy and Zomato escalates, both companies continue to invest in innovative features and strategies to capture a larger pie of the Indian food delivery market which, as per Statista, is projected to reach a market size of $33.36 Bn in 2023.