Zomato on Monday announced that it will deliver food to its customers in record 10 minutes, without any pressure on delivery partners. This service will be called Zomato Instant. This development comes as Zomato extends a $150 million loan to quick commerce firm Blinkit, formerly Grofers, that promises delivery within 10 minutes. Rivals Zepto and Swiggy Instamart are also offering 10 minute delivery in select cities. In a blog post Zomato CEO Deepinder Goyal said, "innovating and leading from the front is the only way to survive (and therefore thrive) in the tech industry. And here we are… with our 10-minute food delivery offering – Zomato Instant." The company clarified that it won't penalise delivery partners for late deliveries. "The delivery partners are not informed of the promised time of delivery. Time optimisation does not happen on the road, and does not put any lives at risk," Goyal noted. According to Goyal, the instant delivery will be without any compromises and is based on eight principles, which includes highest quality of fresh food and world class hygiene practices among others. The food aggregator company will also be depending heavily on dish-level demand prediction algorithms and in-station robotics to ensure that the food is sterile, fresh and hot at the time it is picked by the delivery partner. Zomato Instant will start a pilot with four stations in Gurugram from April. It will house bestseller items - some 20-30 dishes across its finishing stations from the partner restaurants based on the predictability. "Due to demand predictability at a hyperlocal level, we expect that the price for the customer will get significantly reduced, while the absolute rupees margin/income for our restaurant partners as well as our delivery partners, will remain the same," Goyal added.
