MUMBAI: A battle is brewing between restaurants and food delivery giants Swiggy and Zomato following their foray into quick food delivery service through the launch of separate apps – seen largely as a response to rival Zepto’s standalone cafe app. The move has irked restaurateurs who allege the companies have used their customer data to make and sell private labelled food through the apps which are currently operating in select areas.

Swiggy and Zomato-owned Blinkit have launched standalone apps Snacc and Bistro respectively to deliver snacks, beverages, meals to customers in 10-15 minutes. “This is clearly an abuse of dominance. Swiggy and Zomato are taking unfair advantage of our data and entering our territory. We are going to take legal recourse,” Anurag Katriar, trustee at National Restaurant Association of India (NRAI), told TOI. Restaurants said that by selling private labelled food, they are essentially becoming food service players and not limiting themselves as marketplaces which is what their core operational model is meant to be.
Zomato and Swiggy’s multi-billion dollar food delivery businesses have been built over the years through their partnership with restaurants. With Covid nudging Indians to shop online, the companies started delivering groceries in minutes, eventually building a market for quick commerce. Today, Zomato (through Blinkit) and Swiggy – alongside players like Zepto and Tata’s BigBasket – deliver groceries, electronics, apparel, occasionally iPhones in 10 minutes and now have even forayed into the 10-minute food delivery space.
“We have no reason to not believe them migrating our customers to the products they sell as private labels on their apps. Be it data from a tea brand, biryani or momos,” Sagar Daryani, co-founder & CEO at Wow! Momo Foods and president of NRAI, said.
Swiggy has a 10-minute food delivery service Bolt (offered within the main app) and Zomato is also providing a 15-minute delivery option. However, restaurants are not opposing those services because they operate under the same aggregator model wherein the food is being delivered through partnership with them. “As long as these aggregators are okay working with restaurants and enable restaurants to go quick, we are absolutely fine with it. But we will not want to be demolished as an industry where they end up selling our similar products,” Daryani added.
Swiggy and Zomato did not respond to queries on the business models for the Snacc and Bistro apps.