Boolanga Business Bites

Your Personal Navigator in the Ever-Evolving World of Food Delivery

Week 29.01.2024

In the fast-paced world of food technology, where every byte counts, we're thrilled to welcome you to the latest edition of Boolanga Business Bites! ????

Get ready to embark on a delectable journey through the ever-evolving landscape of food delivery – a realm where innovation, flavors, and technology converge to redefine how we experience gastronomy.

Let's dive into the world of Boolanga Business Bites together!

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?? Food Delivery

India’s Swiggy to cut another 400 jobs amid IPO push. This is the second round of layoffs at the Bengaluru-headquartered startup, which cut just as many jobs early last year (Techcrunch).

Fantuan acquires Chowbus food delivery business. The deal will allow Chowbus to concentrate on the development and optimisation of its restaurant SaaS and POS offerings (Verdict Food Service).

Data breach exposes details of over 3.5 million FreshMenu customers. FreshMenu, an early adopter of the cloud kitchen model, began doorstep food delivery at a time when such services were still novel to internet users in India (National Herald).

IPO-Bound Swiggy Initiates Workforce Restructuring, to Lay Off 350-400 Employees. Swiggy, the renowned food and delivery giant gearing up for an IPO, is set to undergo a restructuring move (Startup Story).

Zomato gets RBI approval to operate as digital payments app. This means that the users will be able to make payments digitally from the app (The Times of India).

NYC is forming a watchdog agency to regulate delivery services. Mayor Eric Adams says discussions are already underway to launch a Department of Sustainable Delivery for the city, noting it'd be the first of its kind in the nation (Restaurant Business Online).

UK to introduce new rules to counter hidden fees online. The government had announced in November that it was planning a crackdown on so-called "drip pricing" (Reuters).

?? Grocery Delivery

Instacart IPO Allegedly Downplayed Rivals, Overplayed Demand. Instacart and its top executives overstated the company’s growth prospects and demand while underselling the threat posed by competitors in initial public offering disclosures, a proposed shareholder class action says (Bloomberg Law).

Britain's Ocado Retail returns to positive earnings in 2022/23 year. Q4 2022/23 revenue up 10.9% (Reuters).

Instacart, DispatchHealth launch joint effort to mitigate food insecurity. A grocery-delivery giant is partnering with a commercial provider of medical house calls to bring healthy meals to patients in their homes (Healthexec).

Instacart Wants to Turn Grocery Shopping Into a Game. The newest AI-powered Caper Cart will dole out rewards—and gather data on shoppers (The Take Out).

Grocer Sobeys Partners with Homemade Food Marketplace Cookin. Sobeys, a prominent grocer, has recently forged an exclusive partnership with Cookin (Trend Hunter).

?? E-Commerce

Daki secures $5M investment for 360 marketing strategy in 2024. 4Equity Media will help Daki increase its online presence in exchange for equity (LatamList).

Former Meituan VP to lead JD’s delivery arm Dada: report (Technode).

Meituan launches in-app AI photo studio. Following the huge popularity of AI-generated photo trends on social media in 2023, the Chinese shopping platform Meituan has now launched its own AI photo studio (Dao Insights).

Meituan's In-store Livestreaming Adds Incentives to Expedite Attraction of Merchant Self-broadcast. Meituan's in-store livestreaming introduced incentive policy to accelerate the attraction of merchant self-broadcasting (Aastocks).

???? Restaurant Tech

Rebel Foods has an IPO on the menu. Rebel Foods plans to file its draft share sale papers in the later half of the year and list on exchanges next year (Mint).

Cloud kitchen giant Rebel Foods integrates with ONDC, aiming for broader consumer reach. As food-related transactions surge on ONDC, Rebel Foods plans to leverage the platform’s extensive accessibility for new touchpoints, ensuring a convenient delivery experience (The Hindu Business Line).

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