Chennai may have been a late starter in online food ordering but the trend is catching on. According to market research firm Redseer Consulting, based on data for the period January-March quarter, Chennai was the sixth city to cross the mark of 10,000 daily online food orders after Bengaluru, Delhi, Mumbai, Hyderabad and Pune.
“Increasing adoption of online food delivery by consumers and Chennai-focussed marketing campaigns by food delivery players who are increasingly looking to increase their penetration in existing markets are the major factors in the city making to the list,” Rohan Agrawal, food tech expert at RedSeer Consulting, told The Hindu.
“Chennai is a key market for Swiggy. We have consistently seen an increase in the number of daily orders since we began operations in 2015. Chennaiites have been able to savour food from a host of restaurants, ranging from Quick Services Restaurants (QSRs) and legendary eateries to trendy new cafés in the city,” T.S. Srivats, vice-president, marketing, Swiggy, said.
For Zomato, online order volume in Chennai has grown more than two times over the last 12 months. The firm attributed the growth primarily to the increase in the number of delivery restaurants on Zomato Online Ordering.
“While we haven’t conducted similar surveys, we can confirm that Chennai features in the top six cities in India — on the basis of the overall user traffic on our platform, as well as the share of online ordering volumes coming from Chennai on Zomato,” said a company spokesperson.
Sathish D. Nagasamy, managing director of Dindigul Thalappakatti, said that the firm has joined hands with Zomato and Swiggy and also has its own online portal.
“More than 15 - 20 % of our orders are from online and delivery apps like Swiggy. For Thalapakatti, which has 24 branches in Chennai, the online orders run into several thousands per day. From techies to families, orders come from a range of customers, and from every corner of Chennai for us,” he added.
Mr. Agrawal also pointed out that Chennai has had a relatively slower adoption to online food delivery when compared to the faster cities such as Bengaluru and Delhi.
“Though Chennai is traditionally a market where people prefer carrying their lunch boxes to work, the trend is slowly changing. In Chennai, 80% of the people prefer eating at home and even if they are eating out, it’s lunch or dinner. In Bengaluru, people have food outside four days a week. Most of our orders are from offices and families. Techies don’t order much as they have their own food courts in office complexes,” K. Bushan, V-P, operations, Dinein.in, said.
