Success Stories- Strategies from Food Tech Platforms

The scope of food technology is increasing. This is creating higher opportunities for food tech businesses. At the same time, the competition is also high. This requires business owners to focus on refining their strategies.

How can food tech companies improve their strategies in a practical way?

The key is to see and do what others do with more creativity and conviction. What’s better than learning from the industry leaders themselves?

In this blog, we have compiled the success stories of leading food tech brands in India. Explore the top business strategies that worked for these platforms. Create your unique pathway to success.

Current State of the Indian Food Tech Industry

India's food tech industry has undergone several changes in recent years. Many factors have contributed to its evolution. These range from technological transformations to focusing on sustainability and health.

The Indian food tech sector's market size has grown a lot, and by 2025, it will be worth around INR 1,868.19 billion. Technologies like Big Data and IoT are significant contributors. This is because they have changed several processes in the industry.

The inclination toward sustainable food production, delivery, and consumption practices has also fueled the industry’s growth.

Food and grocery delivery platforms and cloud kitchens occupy the larger part of this market. People prefer online food and grocery delivery sites for their convenience. At the same time, entrepreneurs are exploring cloud kitchen models. This is due to their cost-effectiveness.

Food tech companies are now using Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning technologies to improve customer experience and redefine processes. Thus, the industry's growth can be attributed to these factors.

However, specific challenges remain, restraining the industry’s expansion. Inefficient supply chains, food safety, and market saturation remain the biggest challenges. The competition is high, with new food tech startups entering.

Despite these setbacks and challenges, several food tech startups have become popular. How did they do it? Let’s see this in the next section.

Top Food Tech Startups in India- Growth Stories

Here are the food tech companies that have made it to the top in recent years:

Zomato

Zomato might be the first name that strikes everyone when thinking about food tech companies. With much effort, it has become that brand and earned that recognition.

The platform lets users browse restaurants, go through their menus and ratings, and order food.

When Zomato was launched in 2008, this ease of exploring restaurants and menus transformed how people dined. Finding a restaurant that offered the food customers preferred became easier. Moreover, the ratings and reviews helped people pick better.

What Zomato focused on was people’s pain points. They analysed the challenges customers faced-

• Difficulty in finding a good restaurant for quality dining

• Not knowing the pricing structure of restaurants, they wanted to try

• Dissatisfaction with the food quality of restaurants

Zomato solved these issues through an easy-to-navigate platform.

Now, Zomato is also acing its marketing game. The food tech company has taken an unconventional route to beat the competition. Humour stands at the core of Zomato’s marketing campaigns. The team capitalizes on the mem culture to attract the crowd's attention.

It has cracked the sentiments of its target audience and uses its social media inclination to promote its offerings. Every piece of content on Zomato’s social handles is laced with humour. Its Instagram page is a meme fest with relatable memes about food ordering and choices.

Their Twitter (Now X) feed is also filled with hilarious tweets.

Zomato has mastered the art of humour in their app notifications and social sites. This is one USP of this food tech startup that has kept customers hooked.

These tactics work for the brand, as Zomato gets an average of 3 million orders every day.

Swiggy

Swiggy is a direct competitor of Zomato, and both brands are often thought of simultaneously. Swiggy also works as a food delivery platform with a wide restaurant network.

Although Swiggy joined the food tech industry in 2014, much later than Zomato, it has also carved a name for itself. Swiggy prioritized refining its brand communication strategies to beat the competition and gain the trust of the restaurants.

The brand revamped the logistics process to minimize the food delivery time, which was a challenge for restaurants. Identifying this issue, Swiggy proposed 30-40 minutes, no minimum order delivery, as its USP.

Swiggy also focused on the younger audience and has utilized in-app advertising to increase its reach and popularity. Instead of using several social platforms, Swiggy prioritized one platform and partnered with Snapchat.

The brand used Snapchat stories and ads to promote its offers. It shot up order counts within six months and minimized customer acquisition costs.

Although there are many large social platforms on which to promote brands, companies must focus on the one that aligns with their business goals and is used by their target audience. Swiggy set an example of this strategy when it connected with Snapchat.

Snapchat also offered critical insights into Swiggy’s target customer base. It helped the brand design more personalized and effective marketing strategies to attract customers.

As a food tech company, Swiggy later ventured into grocery delivery with its special segment, Swiggy Instamart, which has become a household name.

Faasos

Faasos started as a food delivery platform, and today, it is the only brand that operates on all three stages of food on-demand business-

• Food ordering

• Order fulfilment

• Distribution

Operating under its parent company, Rebel Foods, Faasos became popular for its exciting menu, which has a vast number of wrap and roll choices.

Later, Faasos analysed the ongoing trends in the food tech industry and, using technology, ventured into the cloud kitchen model. Cloud kitchens were a raging trend in the food technology business in 2016 when Faasos launched their cloud kitchen with Behrouz Biryani.

It later created several new brands, such as Sweet Truth for desserts, Mandarin Oak for Chinese food, and Good Bowl for bowl meals.

Faasos’ data-driven and prompt decision to jump on emerging trends has contributed to its immense success.

Apart from this strategy, Faasos also focused on its marketing campaigns and one problem faced by several online businesses: cart abandonment.

However, unlike other industries such as fashion or gadgets, cart abandonment in food tech means a lost sale.

To overcome this challenge, Faasos resorted to sending web notifications. Its strategy was to send push notifications to its entire customer base during meal hours. It also sent follow-up notifications to people who abandoned carts to complete orders. These notifications were timed to increase their effectiveness.

Big Basket

Big Basket has the highest market share in the online grocery delivery segment. The brand has been a phenomenal success in India and overseas.

How did Big Basket become so successful?

This food tech platform adopted all the proven marketing tactics, including influencer promotions, celebrity endorsements, and more, to gain visibility. After successful branding, the platform focused on what customers wanted- fresh groceries and on-time delivery.

To fulfil this requirement, Big Basket adopted a hyper-local strategy. The brand has partnered with over 1800 local grocery stores across different locations. These local outlets have reduced their delivery time.

To further enhance its service and solidify the network, Big Basket acquired a delivery startup named Deliver.

With the hyper-local strategy, the platform has showcased its commitment to delivering fresh products. Customers can rely on the freshness of the food, as the groceries come from local outlets.

Big Basket also plays a role in the pricing strategy, keeping a shallow profit margin and focusing more on volume. As such, customers do not see much difference when buying from local stores or Big Basket.

With this strategy, Big Basket has nailed its on-time delivery promise and increased customer retention.

Wrapping Up

As we learned from the top names in the Indian food tech industry, venturing into this competitive sector requires top-notch strategies. These food tech companies have established themselves as leaders by adopting unique strategies for

• Branding

• Customer acquisition

• Customer retention

If you want to build a solid strategy to drive success for your food tech business, partner with GrowthJockey. We will help you with every step of your food tech journey, from market analysis to future strategy. Connect with the GrowthJockey team and see your business grow successfully.

Also read our researched blog: UI UX in Food Tech Website Development: Feast for the Eyes

FAQs

1. What is Zomato’s USP?

Zomato’s marketing strategies are based on humour, which resonates with the younger audience and has driven the platform’s popularity.

2. What sets Faasos apart from other food tech companies?

Faasos operates in all three areas of on-demand food delivery and, along with its parent company, Rebel Foods, relies on technology to curate and deliver extensive food menus.

3. Which areas of the food tech sector in India showcase the highest growth prospects?

On-demand food delivery, online grocery delivery, and cloud kitchen business are the three main segments in the Indian food tech market.