While restaurants across the country are empty, small food-tech companies too have been hit by the coronavirus pandemic now that most corporate hubs are shut and many more employees are working out of their homes. Some are trying to innovate by allowing those employees still coming to the office to order and delivering to their work-stations.
Karan Tanna, founder, Ghost Kitchens, said orders have been falling with more companies asking their employees to work from home. “Also, though we are seeing a pick-up in orders in some residential areas, people seem to be worried about eating food from outside, especially non-vegetarian food,” Tanna added. His online food delivery company runs 210 internet restaurants through 22 kitchens across Mumbai, Pune, New Delhi and Ahmedabad
Not only are bulk orders from companies drying up even those who continue to order are staying with big and reputed brands, said Chef Anshu Raj, founder, cloud kitchen Caters Point. “This is a critical time for all start-ups. Residential orders have also been impacted,” Raj said. Caters Point operates in New Delhi and Gurgaon, a large business district.
B2B food-tech start-up Hungerbox that runs cafeterias across companies said it has witnessed a softening in demand starting March 16 and has set up food dispensers in over 100 cafeterias. It has also introduced desk ordering that gives employees access to a truncated menu via the company’s app while the food is delivered to their workstations, co-founder and CEO Sandipan Mitra said.
Ashwin Jain, founder of pizza delivery brand Instapizza, said he has seen a 5%-7% increase in orders over the last few days but there’s no surge. The company has 16 micro-kitchens and outlets in Delhi-NCR and parts of Punjab; it delivers via food aggregators like Zomato and Swiggy but customers can also collect their orders from the outlets.