Zomato, Swiggy ordered to shut down in several states

Online food delivery platforms Zomato and Swiggy have been ordered to shut down in several states during the 21-day lockdown despite the union government’s guidelines categorizing food delivery under essential services.

Tamil Nadu and parts of Punjab, Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat, Goa, Chhattisgarh, Bihar, Assam, and Pondicherry have not allowed food delivery businesses to operate during the lockdown.

“Only cooked food supply from Swiggy and Zomato are not allowed,” tweeted Greater Chennai Corporation, a civic body that governs the capital city of Tamil Nadu.

Elsewhere in Rajasthan and Odisha, government orders continue to be unclear. In the Telugu-speaking states food delivery service is disallowed in large parts of Andhra Pradesh, while Telangana has allowed services with certain time restrictions. “Food, including cooked food, is an essential service for at least 20% of the country’s population like students, paying guests and young professionals who depend on it, especially at a time like this when the country has advised everyone for medical reasons to stay where they are, and not travel back home,” said Vivek Sunder, chief operating officer at Swiggy.

Read: Zomato, Swiggy operate with minimal staffing as restaurants shutter

Top cities affected include Lucknow, Chandigarh, Ludhiana, Dehradun, Kanpur, Ghaziabad, Bhopal, Indore, Chennai, and Coimbatore.

Over the last two days, Karnataka, Delhi-NCR and Maharashtra—the largest markets for India’s food delivery startups—have moved fast and issued notifications to local authorities to let food delivery firms function smoothly. “We are working through the teething issues due to the lockdown,” said Deepinder Goyal, founder and CEO, Zomato. “We are yet to see 100% impact in most states.”

Company executives and restaurant owners that ET spoke to said on-ground execution in several states is becoming a huge challenge, as law enforcement authorities tighten restrictions.

This comes at a time when food delivery aggregators are faced with a two-fold problem—getting permissions to operate and ensuring supply partners open for business.

Swiggy and Zomato executives said cloud kitchens across the country are struggling due to a mix of problems from arranging manpower to procuring fresh supplies and packaging material while also generating the right volume of orders to make operations sustainable.

Mom’s Kitchen, a B2B food delivery business has been facing issues with sourcing goods from its regular suppliers. “The normal wholesale suppliers for procuring raw materials are not working anymore… we have to buy in retail. At the same time, there is a major workforce challenge to fulfil demand,” said its founder Deepti Nanda.

Read: Zomato sets up fund for delivery staff, extends Gold memberships by two months

For Instapizza founder Ashwin Jain, the bigest challenge has simply been getting team members into the kitchens. “A lack of consistency in the enforcement of the lockdown with regard to employees of essential service companies has meant that a lot of our team members are sent back home while trying to commute to work,” he said.

However, those outlets that have cleared hygiene and safety checks are waiting to go live as soon as they get permission. “My staff is at the premises, they are waiting for their passes from Bengaluru police…the minute we have that we open operations,” said Nitin Saluja, founder, Chaayos.