MARKETING. Dining in on the exotic

Early this year three-year old food, fashion and lifestyle delivery platform Scootsy launched a new service in Mumbai called Scootsy Express – meals specially curated for corporates. These customised meals sourced from places such as Indigo Delicatessen, The Bombay Canteen, Smoke House Deli, Ministry of Salads, and Kuai Kitchen are created exclusively for Scootsy Express customers and not on the restaurants’ table menus.

For those looking for a five-star meal in the comfort of their home, Scootsy delivers that too. Currently all the Taj properties in Mumbai – from The Taj Mahal Tower to Taj Santa Cruz, Vivanta by Taj and The Taj Land’s End – are on board the platform. “Apart from that, we also have other high-end hotels such as Sofitel and Intercontinental who have tied up with us,” says Sandeep Das, co-founder and CEO of Scootsy.

Are customers biting? Das says they are seeing a growing demand for high-end delivery and Thai Pavilion, Nara Thai, and Bastian are really doing well. “Customers want to get the same premium experience of great food in the comfort of their homes,” he says.

It’s the same story in Delhi. Gourmet home delivery is on the rise as are highly specialised menus. Gone are the days when fast food like pizzas and noodles were the staple order on delivery platforms, and it was all about convenience and price. Today, people are ordering in Japanese, fancy kebab platters, Pan-Asian and other exotic fare, and price is no bar.

Changing tastes

According to Foodpanda, when it analysed engagement on the platform, it found that people are warming up to atypical international cuisines. Online delivery was up for Lebanese (increase by 19 per cent), European (up 18 per cent) and Japanese (up 14 per cent).

This change in tastes has also reflected in the mushrooming of highly specialised delivery units. Take Foodcraft, the company behind Asian Haus, Sushi Haus and Amma’s Haus that delivers modern and exciting Asian, Japanese and South Indian flavours. Or Salad Days that delivers premium hand-crafted salads. Upmarket hotels such as The Lalit, Claridges and Vivanta have put their restaurants on platforms such as FooDrool and Swiggy. Previously it would be anathema for these classy joints to deliver – after all, wasn’t five-star dining all about the experience and the ambience?

“This was a trend waiting to happen,” says Marryam Reshii, noted food critic, pointing out how, with the rise in disposable incomes, tastes and standards have evolved. No longer are you content with ordering that chicken dish from the neighbourhood tandoori joint, but look for either an exotic meal or five-star fare when you entertain at home.

Explosive growth

Samir Kuckreja, founder and CEO of Tasanya Hospitality, a consulting firm, says that food delivery is seeing explosive growth. With consolidation happening in the delivery platforms (Ola’s acquisition of Food Panda), orders swelling on leaders Zomato and Swiggy, expansion of Uber Eats, and rise of cloud kitchens (delivery-only, no dine-in, with centralised large kitchen) such as Faasos, FreshMenu and Holachef, the stage is set for exciting action. According to Redseer Consulting, gross merchandise volume stood at $700-750 million in 2017. It also notes that online food ordering increased by 30 per cent in January-March over the previous quarter in 2018. The data includes companies operating in both the cloud kitchen model and the restaurant aggregator model.

Kuckreja points out how there are interesting innovations when it comes to customer acquisition, marketing and user experience. And in terms of new flavours, cuisines and specialised niches, there is so much happening in the delivery space. In fact, dine-in is seeing far more excitement than dining out.

All the platforms are spreading out fast. Uber Eats, which launched in May 2016 and is present in 16 cities, says it has experienced almost 50 per cent month-on-month growth and doubled in terms of number of orders since the first quarter of 2018. “We will continue to plough wider and dig deeper in the cities we’ve already launched in by way of adding more and more geographies and restaurants to the platform. At the same time we will look for opportunities to take our service to newer cities and expand our network in India,” says Bhavik Rathod, head of Uber Eats in India. The aim is to tap upcoming cities with a population of students and professionals.

As for nnovation, he points to a prep time prediction tool which forecasts how long a delivery partner will have to wait for the food. At the customer end, it has used machine learning to introduce a lot of contextual information based on past ordering history – so the app will send Netflix-like recommendations.

Food Panda too is investing more in user experience. “We have tried to reduce the number of steps taken to place an order and better payment integrations with platforms like Paytm and PhonePe. We also intend to leverage the logistical prowess of Ola in the near future for a wider reach and access,” says a spokesperson.

Scootsy is doing unique things like breaking the distance barrier in Mumbai . It introduced Long Distance Delivery service in the Maximum City, crossing the Sea Link to deliver orders. So, for instance, customers in South Mumbai can feast on food from Bandra West’s Lucky Biryani, even though it’s 17 km away. Most app/restaurant delivery businesses function in a 3 km range. In Delhi, delivery is also extending its hours. So, for instance, there is Owl is Well, an all-night delivery outfit, where insomniacs can assuage hunger pangs at even 4 a.m.

 

New ordering patterns

Almost all the platforms are relentlessly pushing campaigns to get people to order more. On Food Panda, for instance, there was a virtual food festival earlier this year with discounts of almost 60 per cent on some orders, to entice customers.

Festival times and sports season are good business for the delivery companies. According to Rathod of Uber Eats, in Kochi during Vishu, when it did celebratory meals in partnership with restaurants in the city, the response was overwhelming and the restaurants received more than double the orders, compared to the same day in the previous week. But even otherwise orders are moving northwards.

According to Food Panda, the orders for lunch time have increased by 18 per cent across all days of the week, 20 per cent surge has been seen during evening snack time, and the dinner orders have spiked by 25 per cent.

Rathod of Uber Eats says order patterns differ through the week. “On weekdays, we typically see a surge in lunch orders for one-person meals, meal bowls and meal boxes, he says. “In fact, to give you a fun fact – biryani is one of the most ordered dishes on our platform across cities,” he says.

Going forward, much more is expected to change in the delivery landscape. Even as average ticket sizes of orders are increasing, a price war is in the offing. The aggregator platforms are all expected to have their own cloud kitchens either creating it on their own like Zomato or acquiring existing ones.

With the plastics ban becoming a reality in many states, restaurants will also be investing in biodegradable containers which could up costs. Some of the players might hurt, but for customers it’s going to be delicious days ahead.

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