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NRAI was opposing the launch of Blinkit’s Bistro, a new quick food delivery app. They contended that Zomato and Swiggy will leverage access to restaurant data as they enter the private-label food industry, which will hurt hundreds of smaller restaurants.
However, Dhindsa has said that Bistro is not being built within Zomato, but will have a standalone team, with a standalone app, and no Zomato restaurant data has been used. He added that they will not even use the Zomato app to market Bistro.
“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. All the companies innovating with us on Bistro also work with a number of restaurants and our success at Bistro has the potential to add value for the entire food & restaurant ecosystem,” he further wrote in a post on X (formerly Twitter).
Also, as @deepigoyal has always said, Zomato will never launch private brands on the Zomato app to compete with its restaurant partners. This still holds true. Which is why this service is not being built within Zomato (the organisation which runs the brand, or the app). This is… https://t.co/q79x4vZJsR
— Albinder Dhindsa (@albinder) January 10, 2025
This post came as Dhindsa officially announced the launch of Bistro, Blinkit’s new 10-minute food offering. This service is currently live across a few locations in Gurugram, as the company looks to find product market fit.
This app, he wrote, will offer customers ‘high quality’ canteen-type food, delivered hot in 10 minutes.
“To achieve this, we are innovating on the entire food supply chain with Bistro. 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. We have partnered with a number of companies innovating in the food industry to make this happen and will continue to support the ecosystem,” he added.
NRAI President Sagar Daryani, however, remains critical of the move, accusing platforms like Zomato and Swiggy of redirecting customers to their private labels, which he says unfairly competes with restaurant partners.
Also Read: We have been backstabbed by Swiggy and Zomato in a way, says NRAI president Daryani
