Zepto, the instant grocery delivery app, has recently joined the bandwagon of instant food delivery service. Through a statement, this Y Combinator backed start-up recently announced that they are venturing into 10-minute food delivery through its own app 'Café'. The service is initially available in Mumbai region. As a part of the service, they will be delivering ready to eat and drink products to their patrons. And reportedly, the company co-founder and CEO Aadit Palicha stated that this is a snack delivery (not food delivery) service, and his company has no plan of foraying in food delivery that includes full-fledged meals, fast foods and more.
"Let me clarify that we are not doing food delivery. This is a Café format, with ready-to-drink coffee, chai, and packaged snacks (like biscuits and sandwiches). We don't want to get distracted from our core business by building a complex supply chain for food delivery, where it's difficult to control quality," the 19-year-old CEO stated in an official statement.
Palicha added, "We launched the Zepto Cafe format as a pilot a few weeks ago, and we've seen an incredible response from customers. We're going to continue tweaking the model for quite some time so we can perfect the customer experience and unit economics before scaling."
He further broke down the data behind the model in a quick Twitter conversation with industrialist Anand Mahindra. Palicha stated, "The avg [average] distance of a Zepto delivery is 1.8 km. To travel 1.8 km in 10 minutes, one has to drive at <15 kmph. That's why Zepto has 3.1x lower accidents on avg [average] compared to a regular biker on the road."
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Find the Twitter thread here: