Eternal-owned Zomato is testing a new model in Gurugram, installing food vending machines at corporate workplaces in partnership with food and restaurant brands, people familiar with the matter told ET.
The initiative, called Zomato Now, marks the foodtech company’s latest attempt at rapid food delivery.
“The fresh food pods are being set up at a few corporate offices in Gurugram as a pilot, essentially for employees at those workplaces to access food items from high-quality brands and restaurants,” one of the people said.
A picture of one such pod was posted on social media by LinkedIn user Daksh Jain.
Zomato did not respond to ET’s queries.
Zomato Now comes alongside sister company Blinkit’s 10-minute food delivery service Bistro, which operates through its own cloud kitchens.
In May last year, Eternal called off its second attempt at rapid food delivery and consolidated its 15-minute food delivery experiment under Blinkit’s Bistro vertical. This came even as rival Swiggy was scaling Bolt, its 10-minute food delivery service that relies on select restaurant partners offering limited menus. Swiggy, however, has since shut down Snacc , a service that operated on a model similar to Bistro.
Bistro is one of Eternal’s key bets in rapid delivery and its push to offer more affordable food options. Swiggy has launched a standalone app, Toing, for the same segment, while mobility firm Rapido has rolled out its own food delivery app, Ownly.
On July 22, Eternal CFO Akshant Goyal said Blinkit was adding around 10 kitchens a quarter for Bistro.
“What is encouraging is that in some of our older kitchens, we are seeing a lot of progress in throughput, and we’re getting the mix of the right assortment, menus, menu pricing and operational infrastructure and efficiency,” Goyal said.
“As we iterate and make that better, we will see the business becoming more profitable and we can then be more aggressive on expansion as we build that confidence. We’ll be cautiously expanding for now, but at some point, it can accelerate once we are more confident about the business,” he added.
