What the business is
India's food-delivery platform.
The bet
Pre-mixed bestsellers held at finishing stations could make 10-minute food delivery work in dense Indian neighbourhoods.
How it started
Zomato piloted Instant in 2022 in Delhi-NCR and Bengaluru, with partner restaurants supplying pre-mixed versions of predicted bestsellers to its finishing stations.
What happened
The most popular items proved to be momos, poha and maggi; the ordering option was disabled around the start of 2023 as growth stalled. Earlier attempts — Swiggy's 2015 15-minute tie-ups with cloud kitchens Eatongo and Brekkie, and Ola Cafe — had also died on unit economics.
How it ended up
The 10-minute ordering option was disabled from the start of 2023; Zomato said Instant was being rebranded with a new menu, all finishing stations intact and no staff impacted.
What has to be true
Only dense office and student neighbourhoods sustained the 10-minute promise, and there were too few such pockets to scale.
The launch backlash over rider safety made the service's core selling point harder to communicate.
Micro finishing stations carry fixed costs that the narrow menu and small footprint could not feed with volume.
What can be applied
10-minute delivery only works where density does: without enough compact, high-demand neighbourhoods, speed is a cost, not a moat.
Aftermath
A rebranded successor with a new menu was in the works with the same partner restaurants as of late January 2023, with all finishing stations retained and no staff impacted; meanwhile Zomato's core food delivery growth slowed to 3% quarter-on-quarter.
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