Jugnoo Forays Into Restaurant Food Delivery Business; Launches ‘Menus’

On-demand autorickshaw aggregator Jugnoo has forayed into restaurant food delivery segment, with the launch of ‘Menus’. The company is betting big on its in-house logistics services and will now allow consumers to order food from empanelled restaurants on Menus.

Currently geared up to start operations in Noida, Gurugram, Indore, Chandigarh and Jaipur, Jugnoo plans to launch Menus across all Jugnoo locations in India in coming few months.  Also, it further aims to reach 1,000 restaurants in a month.

Ronak Goyal, VP Engineering, Jugnoo said, “The concept of Menus spurred from our existing B2B service vertical that offers logistics services to various vendors including a log of renowned restaurants and QSRs viz. Burger King, Pizza Hut, Subway, Baskin Robins etc. Through this venture, we intend to not only aid delivery requirements of such businesses but also help them scale their business. Thus, thriving on our B2B logistics service, unlike other restaurant aggregators, who hire third-party delivery partners, we ensure quick and convenient delivery through our vast auto network.”

As of now, Jugnoo has tied up with over 200 restaurants which include brands like Super Donut, Burger Hub, Bikanerwala, Sindhi sweets, Burger point, Rolla costa, Copper Chimney, Marky Momos and Dhaba.com etc.

For a long time, online food ordering market in India has been dominated by a few players, making it difficult for the new entrants to survive. The most recent being the acquisition of Rocket Internet-backed foodpanda by Delivery Hero, one of Europe’s biggest startups. Launched in 2012, Foodpanda India listed menus from over 12,000+ restaurants across 200+ cities. While, globally, it partnered with over 45,000 restaurants in 40 countries across five continents.

The foodtech sector has been amongst the unstable ones and has led to the fall of even the older and established players. If we look at publicly available data, more than 18 startups had shutdown their operations in 2016 within the first five months. In May 2016, ZuperMeal, home delivery food startup had shut down its operations just after raising its Seed round of funding. Startups like Dazo, Peppertab and BiteClub have also shut down their operations.

Similar to Jugnoo, cab aggregator Ola also started with its food delivery service Ola Cafe in March 2015. However, the shutters were pulled down in close to one year. Also, recently foodtech startup EatFresh shut down its food delivery service.

As of now Swiggy, InnerChef, and Zomato are considered to be the key players in this segment. How well Jugnoo will be able to compete and meet the expectations of this ‘fast and instantaneous’ natured sector, remains to be seen.

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