Budget food battle shifts to winning new users

Food delivery platforms are converging on the same challenge: how to profitably serve the next wave of customers. With spending by existing users flattening and quick commerce reshaping consumer behaviour, they are betting on sharply different low-cost delivery models to drive growth, even as they publicly question each other’s economics.

The debate came into the open last week with Eternal founder Deepinder Goyal and Swiggy food marketplace CEO Rohit Kapoor taking aim at rival approaches. In Eternal’s shareholder letter, Goyal said Bistro was the company’s answer to the question these platforms like Toing and Ownly are pretending to solve.