Bistro by Blinkit, Zomato’s play in the quick food delivery space, will not use restaurant data from Zomato’s food delivery and dining-out operations.
“This is going to be a significant additional cost to us, but ethics and sticking to our word mean more than anything else to us at Zomato and we are not going to give it up to save some marketing cost,” noted Albinder Dhindsa, CEO of Blinkit, in a post on X.
Bistro’s standalone app is built by a separate team rather than being operated under Blinkit’s parent Zomato. Zomato will not even market Bistro, clarified Dhindsa in a post.
The clarifications follow Dhindsa’s formal launch of Bistro, which is being tested across a few locations in Gurugram to ascertain the product-market fit.
“At Bistro, no preservatives or food processors are used in preparing the food, nor is it microwaved processed food. Instead, we are investing in infrastructure and R&D to create tasty dishes within 5 minutes or less,” added Dhindsa.
The statement comes after Sagar Daryani, President of the National Restaurant Association of India (NRAI), said in an interview with Economic Times the association was not okay with Zomato and Swiggy engaging in private labelling and selling food directly via Bistro and Snacc, respectively.
NRAI, which represents five lakh restaurants across the country, had earlier cautioned its members over deep discounting and payment gateway tools offered by aggregator platforms for dine-in operations.
This is one of multiple fronts of tension between food delivery platforms and restaurant partners.
According to non-public documents prepared by the Competition Commission of India, Swiggy and Zomato reportedly violate competition law. The documents, according to a Reuters report, say that Zomato entered into “exclusivity contracts” with partners in return for lower commissions, while Swiggy promised business growth to certain players if they listed exclusively on its platform.
Just days ago, Swiggy launched a standalone app for food delivery under the brand Snacc, along with other quick food offerings like Bolt and Swiggy Cafe.
