Zomato pivots away from restaurant-led quick delivery, doubles down on Blinkit Bistro

Calling off its second attempt at rapid food delivery, Zomato parent Eternal is consolidating its 15-minute food experiment under Blinkit’s Bistro vertical.

The service, which operates via in-house kitchens, is being expanded across Delhi-NCR, Bengaluru, and Mumbai, according to people in the know. Bistro now runs more than 100 kitchens in these markets.

The move allows Eternal tighter control over food preparation timelines, a problem it couldn’t solve through restaurant partnerships.


Meanwhile, rival Swiggy is scaling its 10-minute food delivery service Bolt, which relies on select restaurant partners offering limited menus. Swiggy said on May 2 that Bolt had expanded to 500 cities from 400 in December. The service now accounts for over 10% of Swiggy’s food delivery volumes. Zomato’s Quick had reached a similar share before being shut down.

Zomato CEO Deepinder Goyal had told ET in March that quick delivery contributed 8% to the company’s order volumes. Eternal’s stock surged 16% on Monday—its biggest single-day gain since listing—after the news.

Why Quick failed to scale

During the company’s earnings call, Eternal CFO Akshant Goyal said it had cracked one part of the fast-delivery equation—fleet management—but not the kitchen readiness. “The current restaurant density and infrastructure are not designed for 10-minute food delivery, which led to inconsistent customer experience,” he said. “We didn’t see any demand uptick during our Quick pilot.”

While some cloud kitchens are creating Bolt-specific prep stations, they admit that such rapid models only work for a narrow menu.

“We’ve created separate stations in our kitchens for Bolt orders, but they’re limited to 8–10 items from a 75-item menu,” said a founder of a cloud kitchen chain. “There’s traction, but it risks diluting our broader brand experience.”

Also Read: “Will grow Blinkit’s market share aggressively”: Eternal CFO Akshant Goyal

Zomato had launched Quick in select cities four months ago, riding a wave of interest sparked by Swiggy’s Bolt, Blinkit’s Bistro, and Zepto Café. The latter had crossed 100,000 orders per day by February.

Profitability over experimentation

Eternal’s exit from Quick signals its intent to preserve margins in food delivery, especially amid Blinkit’s growing losses. Analysts said competitors’ quick-delivery push may have also eroded some of Zomato’s market share.

“Consumers aren’t spending aggressively on food delivery right now,” said Satish Meena of Datum Intelligence. “That makes niche formats like 10-minute delivery or home-style meals harder to scale.”

Eternal’s food delivery gross order value (GOV) rose 16% year-on-year in the March quarter but slipped 1% sequentially.

Brokerage firm Motilal Oswal noted, “Eternal is shifting full organisational focus to Blinkit. An aggressive 10-minute model could have diluted execution.” The firm remains cautious about food delivery growth, which is still below Eternal’s 20% guidance.

Blinkit CEO Albinder Dhindsa told ET in February: “No one has cracked 10-minute food delivery yet, but the concept is clear. Think QSR—burger chains standardise prep to under two minutes. That doesn’t exist in delivery yet.” “Since no one else is doing it, we’ve had to build our own kitchens—though ideally we’d stay a logistics partner,” he added.

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