It took almost 20 days for Samiran Sengupta, co-founder of JustMyRoots, to convince the owners of the famed Lucknow-based Tunday Kababi to join his platform that specialises in intercity food delivery.  

“When we first approached them, they said they were not interested in joining an online platform,” Sengupta recalls. “They said their band and the trust in it had been built over generations, and that it would take all of one day to ruin it. We told them we’d deliver their food to any of their friends or family and they can then corroborate if its quality and taste was the same or not.”

That’s how JustMyRoots went about convincing restaurants that’ve been part of India’s culinary history to come onboard its platform. It has been in the business of doing what Zomato is just about beginning to test.

Gurugram-based JustMyRoots has been delivering fresh, cooked meals from renowned eateries across cities for four years now – something that restaurant aggregator and food delivery platform Zomato recently grabbed headlines for. Zomato, which is also headquartered in Gurugram, has just launched a pilot project, “Intercity Legends”, to deliver food intercity. Besides JustMyRoots, Kolkata-based Tastes2Plate, too has been delivering food intercity. Its founders, though, could not be contacted despite repeated attempts.

A Zomato spokesperson says, “At the moment, the pilot is only in select locations of Gurugram and South Delhi. That said, any airport city could be a potential market. Over time, we will keep taking inputs from customers and keep adding to our supply.” Currently, food is being delivered “from Kolkata, Hyderabad, Lucknow, Jaipur, Bengaluru, Mathura, Chennai, Agra and Bhubaneswar”.

While launching the intercity food delivery services, Zomato Founder and CEO Deepinder Goyal had said in a blog post that the company would leverage its vast network of restaurants and delivery partners, and its “deep understanding of food technology”, to deliver food in 24 hours.

The questions, though, are: How will Zomato deliver on this promise? What will be the logistics involved, and how will quality and taste be ensured?"

Continued in Support