Restaurant aggregation platform Zomato plans to expand its "Intercity Legends" service across top cities in the next few months, while adding more iconic restaurants on its platform to scale its food delivery service.
Zomato’s Intercity Legends was launched as a pilot in Delhi in late August to offer 24-hour food delivery from premium restaurant brands in different parts of the country, including sandesh and rosogollas from Kolkata, biryani from Hyderabad and chole bhature from Delhi. The service is now available to users in Delhi-NCR and Bengaluru.
So far, Zomato on-boarded 120 restaurants from 10 cities. The process of onboarding more iconic restaurants which who can offer food that travels well, is on, said top executives of the company.
Zomato is now planning to expand the offering to other cities. “We have a lot of clarity. Over the next three months, we want to be in all top cities,” said Siddharth Jhawar, head, Intercity Legends, Zomato. He however, did not disclose the names of cities where the service will be available.
Restaurants currently listed on the platform include Hotel Shadab, Meethe Miya and Mandi@36 from Hyderabad. Customers can order baked Rosogolla from Balaram Mullick and Radharaman Mullick Sweets, chicken biryani from Arsalan from Kolkata. It is offering sweets from sweet shops in Mathura apart from popular dishes from Bengaluru, Lucknow, Chennai and Agra.
“This is the festival time. It is a very interesting time for people, Diwali is coming, New Year is coming—by festival time we want to present in the top cities after that we want to take a step back and then see what is the next scale-up approach,” he said.
Jhawar said the company is focusing on getting all the fundamental metrics and the user experience metrics right, he added.
Orders need to be placed before 4 pm to be delivered between 3- 6 pm the following day.
Zomato has tied up with commercial airlines and logistics partners such as Shadowfax to enable deliveries. The cost of the food item listed on the menu on Zomato factors packaging and other logistics charges. The platform charges a Rs80 delivery fee over and above the listed price.
Unlike Zomato’s other home delivery options, the service is not necessarily hinged on discounts.
In a blog post on 30 August, the company’s founder Deepinder Goyal, had said that Zomato will leverage its vast network of restaurant partners and delivery partners, deep understanding of food technology, and insights into what its customers love. “…legendary dishes will be delivered from across India to you, the very next day,” he said.
“Food is freshly prepared by the restaurant and packed in reusable and tamper-proof containers to keep it safe during air transit. State-of-the-art mobile refrigeration technology preserves the food without the need to freeze it or add any kind of preservatives,” he added.
