Mushrooming online food startups on the back of cloud kitchens

Online food startups aren’t new in the domestic market. Foodpanda and Swiggy were the early entrants and, after a round of consolidation, are still the two largest players in the segment. Though Zomato also joined the party by venturing into online food delivery industry, a diversion from its restaurant info and advertising base. UberEATS is the latest entrant in the country. However, the one common aspect among the above players is that they primarily are a logistics company, and supplies the food to consumers by collecting from their partners. This startup philosophy was changed by new and different food startups such as Faasos, FRSH, FreshMenu and others. These startups are leveraging the concept of “cloud kitchens” wherein they create the takes over the reins of preparation, packaging and delivery of food without providing any dine-in facility to end-consumers, it has been feeding the curiosity of startups that are looking to replace traditional business models with a more sustainable and scalable one.

Rashmi Daga, founder of FreshMenu, said that “Unlike most food-tech companies that are fundamentally delivery-only platforms for existing network of restaurants, we additionally cook our own food, giving us end-to-end control over its quality, thereby improving customer experience. This also helps us manage orders better and trim costs”.