SUMMARY
Zomato will also onboard more restaurants to its platform to scale its novel food delivery services
“By festival time, we want to be present in top cities; after that, we want to take a step back and see what is the next approach,” said Siddharth Jhawar, head of Intercity Legends, Zomato
Zomato’s Intercity Legends service was earlier introduced in Delhi and is now extended to Bengaluru as well
Foodtech giant zomato
is looking to expand its Intercity Legends services across top Indian cities in the next three months. Besides, the startup will also onboard more restaurants to its platform to scale its novel food delivery services.
“We have a lot of clarity. Over the next three months, we want to be in all top cities,” Siddharth Jhawar, head of Intercity Legends, Zomato told Mint.
Zomato’s Intercity Legends service was earlier introduced in Delhi and is now extended to Bengaluru as well.
Inc42 was the first to report that Zomato introduced a new ‘Intercity Legends’ service back in August. Explaining its new services, Zomato said, once restaurants pack all food, it gets frozen and ready for shipping via air or by road. The food reaches customers’ destination in a day and sometimes, takes more than a day.
“This is festival time. It is a very interesting time for people, as Diwali and New Year are coming. By festival time, we want to be present in top cities; after that, we want to take a step back and see what is the next approach,” Jhawar said.
Zomato has added 120 food restaurants from 10 cities to date. The process of adding more restaurants offering food that can travel ( for over 24 hours) is on, said a top executive of Zomato.
Some of the restaurants listed on Zomato’s Intercity Legends include Hotel Shadab, Meethe Miya and Mandi@36 from Hyderabad, among others.
Further, Zomato is focusing on meeting all fundamental and user experience metrics.
What Goes In The Intercity Logistics Framework
To enable ‘Intercity Legends’ services, Zomato has partnered with several commercial airlines and logistics partners including Shadowfax that are providing food deliveries to customers. The foodtech giant said that if a food order is placed before 4 PM on a certain day, the same will be delivered between 3 PM and 6 PM on the following day.
The foodtech platform charges INR 80 extra as a delivery fee along the listed price of food. It is prudent to note here that customers can’t get any discounts when availing Zomato intercity delivery services.
The latest development has come barely a day after Zomato announced that it is piloting a health cover worth INR 3 Lakh for its delivery executives, which can be extended to their families. The pilot is currently being carried out in three cities– New Delhi, Hyderabad and Ahmedabad.
As per the foodtech giant, the health cover scheme is eligible for delivery executives with two to three years of working experience with Zomato.
Besides, Zomato also informed that it would take action against cloud kitchens (listed on its platform) that are selling food from more than 10 brands. It said that it would conduct manual checks to make sure brands that are being served from the same location are providing distinct products.
Earlier this month, the foodtech giant reappointed Sanjeev Bikhchandani, cofounder of InfoEdge, as its non-executive director onto its board.
