Zomato To 'Rebrand’ Its 10-Minute Food Delivery Service Zomato Instant

SUMMARY

Rejecting a report which said Zomato is shutting down Zomato Instant, the foodtech giant said it working on a new menu and rebranding the business

A Zomato spokesperson said that no employee would be impacted by the rebranding and all finishing stations would remain intact

Zomato launched the 10-minute food delivery programme in March last year, followed by the launch of intercity food delivery service in August 2022

Less than a year after the launch of Zomato Instant, foodtech giant Zomato has decided to rebrand the 10-minute food delivery programme.

“We are working on a new menu with our partners and rebranding the business. All finishing stations remain intact, and no people are impacted by this decision,” a Zomato spokesperson told Inc42.

Earlier in the day, ET reported that Zomato is planning to shut down the service as the segment is showing no signs of turning profitable. “The company was not getting the daily volume required to even pay the fixed costs. It wasn’t scaling up to that level,” a source was quoted as saying in the report.

However, rejecting this, the spokesperson said, “Instant is not shutting down.”

Zomato launched the 10-minute food delivery programme in March last year. Zomato Instant delivers about 20-30 dishes, based on demand predictability and hyperlocal preferences, in 10 minutes from Zomato’s finishing stations to customers living in a radius of not more than 2 kms from the stations.

“After becoming a frequent customer of Blinkit [one of Zomato’s investments in the quick commerce space], I started feeling that the 30-minute average delivery time by Zomato is too slow, and will soon have to become obsolete,” Zomato founder and CEO Deepinder Goyal said while announcing the launch of Zomato Instant.

It must be noted that Zomato announced the acquisition of Blinkit in June last year to enter the quick-commerce segment.

The foodtech giant has been piloting various programs in its efforts to increase its revenue and turn profitable. In August last year, it launched intercity food delivery under the Intercity Legends branding. While Intercity Legends was launched in Delhi and later extended to Bengaluru, the startup was looking at expanding the service to other top cities as well.

The foodtech giant reported a decline in its consolidated loss to INR 250.8 Cr during the second quarter of FY23 from INR 434.9 Cr in the corresponding quarter of previous year. Zomato’s operating revenue increased 62% year-on-year to INR 1,661.3 Cr during the quarter from INR 1,024.2 Cr in the year-ago quarter.