Zomato expands food delivery services in Vijayawada, Madurai, and Cuttack

भारत भर में अपनी उपस्थिति को मजबूत करने के लिए खाद्य वितरण प्लेटफार्म स्विगी ने आठ नए शहरों में अपनी सेवाएं शुरू की हैं।

इन नए शहरों में देहरादून, पुडुचेरी, मैसूर, विजयवाड़ा, नासिक, गुवाहाटी, कानपुर और लुधियाना शामिल हैं। स्विगी ने इन शहरों में 1,200 से अधिक रेस्टोरेंट के साथ साझेदारी की है।

स्विगी के सीओओ विवेक सुंदर ने कहा, "इन आठ नए बाजारों में विस्तार करना हमारे लिए बहुत महत्वपूर्ण है।"

उन्होंने आगे कहा कि कंपनी ने पूरे भारत में उपभोक्ताओं के लिए खाद्य आदेश और वितरण को अधिक सुलभ, भरोसेमंद और सुविधाजनक बनाने में महत्वपूर्ण भूमिका निभाई है।

स्विगी की स्थापना 2014 में हुई थी। यह एक ऑनलाइन मंच है जिसमें 40,000 से अधिक रेस्टोरेंट  साझेदार 27 शहरों में फैले हुए हैं।

In a bid to strengthen its presence across India, Food delivery platform Swiggy has started its services in eight new cities.

These new cities include Dehradun, Puducherry, Mysore, Vijayawada, Nashik, Guwahati, Kanpur and Ludhiana. Swiggy has also partnered with more than 1,200 restaurants in these cities.

Vivek Sunder, COO of Swiggy, said, "Expanding to these eight new markets is very important to us."

He further added that the company has played an instrumental role in making food ordering and delivery more accessible, reliable and convenient for consumers across India.

Swiggy was founded in 2014. It is an online platform with over 40,000 restaurant partners spread across 27 cities. 

Online food ordering and delivery platform Foodpanda India is planning to hire 60,000 delivery riders in the next two months to ensure seamless delivery experience.

In order to increase its order volume, the company has also launched a slew of discounts and offers across desserts, snacks and biryani. The delivery firm expects that the discount campaign will boost its order volume by over 10 times.

Pranay Jivrajka, CEO of Foodpanda India, said, “We understand that there is a constant need to scale up logistics to meet the growing needs of the business and to address that, we will be hiring 60,000 riders in a short span of 2 months. We also aim to establish strategic and long-term relationships with our partner restaurants and constantly add more restaurants to the platform.”

Earlier, Foodpanda, which was acquired by ride-hailing firm Ola in December 2017, was looking to add 25,000 delivery executives by mid-2019. But, it decided to advance and scale its resource sourcing and allocation given the steep demand in the market.

Choice Hotels India plans to add 11 properties under the franchise model by the end of 2020 in India. The company, which is a subsidiary of the US-based hospitality major Choice Hotels International, currently has 29 hotels in India.

“We will be opening 11 hotels in India by the end of 2020 under the franchise model. The upcoming hotels are under various stages of development,” Choice Hotels India CEO Vilas Pawar told PTI.

The hotels will be present in locations, including Port Blair, Gorakhpur, Ooty, Lucknow, Lakhimpur and Kochi. The company operates in India under five brands -- Sleep Inn, Comfort Inn, Quality Inn, Clarion and Ascend Collection.

On the investments that the company plans to make for the expansion, Pawar said: “As we follow the franchise model, we don’t invest in the property. We invest in our distribution platforms, and in our systems that deliver values and in training.”

“The investments primarily go into making our brand visible and on brand promotion,’’ he added.

Pawar said the company is present mainly in the mid-scale segment. “Going forward, we see great opportunities in India and we see great opportunities in the mid-scale segment,” he added.

Pune-based Relfor Labs has launched its new venture Bakeway.com that has clubbed more than 350 bakeries and 75 home bakers from across the city on a single platform.

Deepak Nathani, the CEO of Relfor said an investment of Rs 3 crore in the venture this year can help me to venture in the national market over the course of the next two years with a total investment of over Rs 10 crore. He also mentioned plans for expanding the venture to offer snacks and party combos from bakeries.

Relfor in a statement mentioned, “Users are required to enter their preferred locality within the city and follow few quick steps to order cakes from the best bakeries and home bakers in town.”

Nathani, who invests actively in other start-ups and ideas and was also the co-founder and former COO of Cybage said online activity in the start-up space, is increasingly becoming niche. “Looking at the current e-commerce trend, consumers are more inclined towards the niche online marketplaces.”

At Bakeway, he has subsumed bakeries like Copper Chocs, Bakers Basket, WS Bakers, Cake and Cream Factory.

Popular waffle chain, WAFL having 50+ Quick service restaurants (QSR) outlets all over the world, is all set to enter the Indian market, with first flagship store opening at the SDA market.

Targeting a revenue of Rs. 60 crores by 2018, WAFL will soon open stores in GK-1, Punjabi Bagh, followed by Bengaluru and Surat for its first phase launch.

By 2020, the company aims to open 250 stores pan India, with a targeted revenue of Rs. 200 crores.

"We are going to be present in each state of India by 2020. Apart from Gujarat and Rajasthan which will have vegetarian menu, all other states will have non vegetarian products also in the menu. Apart from franchisee stores, we will also come up with our own flagship, company operated stores. We are overwhelmed, by the response we got from our SDA outlet," shared international business head, WAFL, Adzhai Sharma.

The WAFL food range will include a large range of waffle products namely Hongkong WAFL, Belgian WAFL, WAFL Corn Dog, WAFL Sandwich, WAFL Pie and the unique J-Tube for soft serve.

"Consumer is more health conscious now and caught up with the fast paced life, so through our QSR we want to serve deliciously healthy food, to help them maintain their health conscious need. We are positive that Indian market will like our products, we are eyeing pan India expansion," quoted executive partner, Rajeev Chawla.

Australian pizza brand Eagle Boys is bullish on India business and is planning to open 300 outlets in next 4 years.

"We are planning to open a chain of 300 stores over the next three to four years," shared G B Singh, CEO & Director, Eagle Boys Pizza India.

Eagle boys which is one of the largest pizza chain in Australia runs over In Australia runs 200 outlets in the country.

“India sales could be around Rs 150 crore over the next 3-4 years covering the top 50 cities of the country,” added Singh.

By the end of this fiscal, the pizza chain is trying to add over 50 outlets from the current 18 in the country.

The group is presently running around 18 outlets in India spread across Mumbai, Pune, Chennai, Coimbatore, Hyderabad and Kolkata.