Buying fruits and vegetables online has long required a small leap of faith. You tap ‘add’ to cart, wait 10 minutes, and hope the apples that come to your doorstep are not bruised or the tomatoes overripe. But quick commerce platform Zepto is now trying to reduce that leap.
The company has begun piloting a new in-app feature called Real Lens that lets customers view actual photographs of fruits and vegetables available at their nearest dark store — taken each morning before the day’s orders begin to roll in. Users can toggle between the two to view what the stock at that location actually looks like on that day.
Real-time glimpse before delivery
Each photograph carries a timestamp indicating when the image was captured. The idea, according to the company’s positioning of the feature on the app, is to give buyers a visual sense of what they are ordering before the product reaches their doorstep.
The move comes against the backdrop of a persistent problem in quick commerce: inconsistent quality in fresh produce deliveries. Customer complaints around bruised, wilted or unevenly ripened fruits and vegetables have been common across platforms.
Part of the issue lies in the supply chain. Produce typically travels two to three days from farm or mandi through distribution networks before landing at a dark store from which it is dispatched for rapid delivery.
Unlike packaged foods, fresh produce sold loose online does not fall under specific freshness disclosure norms. The Food Safety and Standards Authority of India requires that packaged food sold through e-commerce platforms have at least 30% of its shelf life remaining — or a minimum of 45 days before expiry — at the point of delivery. Fruits and vegetables, however, are exempt from displaying expiry or best-before dates, leaving customers with little information on quality at the point of purchase.
Zepto did not respond to queries on the scale or timeline of the Real Lens rollout, or the cities where the feature is currently being tested, at the time of going to press.
Quick commerce doubles down on fresh produce
The experiment comes as quick commerce companies try to strengthen their positioning in fresh produce, a category that is both high frequency and operationally difficult. Zepto itself launched “Harvest Store” last year in select neighbourhoods of Mumbai and Bengaluru, offering curated assortments of premium fruits, vegetables and gourmet items. Around the same time, Swiggy’s Instamart piloted a similar premium produce proposition under the brand Nectr in parts of Bengaluru.
The renewed focus reflects the emergence of specialised competitors that argue perishables require supply chains built around freshness rather than speed. Startups such as FirstClub, Origin Fresh, Handpickd, Freshly, LoveLocal and Pluckk have collectively raised more than $80 million pitching exactly that thesis.
Industry estimates place monthly fresh produce sales on quick commerce platforms at around `600-700 crore, with the premium segment accounting for roughly a tenth of that market.
The photographs appear on individual product pages in the fruits and vegetables category. Shoppers can toggle between the standard catalogue image and the real photo from the store, each stamped with the time it was taken. The idea is simple: show customers what the produce actually looks like— rather than the glossy, perfectly lit mango that may or may not resemble the one that eventually arrives.
In other words, the humble tomato is finally getting its close-up. In that sense, Real Lens acknowledges what many sceptical shoppers have long suspected: that buying vegetables online has, until now, been something of a blind date. The new feature may not guarantee love at first sight. But if it prevents at least a few unpleasant surprises when the grocery bag is opened, Zepto’s tomatoes may finally get the benefit of the doubt.