Quick commerce giant Zepto is spinning off its cafe business, Zepto Cafe, into a separate app from next week as a part of the company's move to expand the service.
Aadit Palicha, cofounder and chief executive of Zepto, said in a LinkedIn post, "We are launching a separate app for Zepto Cafe next week. The team is shipping an MVP and iterating quickly, so it may not be perfect on day 1, but it’s worth it to launch fast."
Inc42 has reached out to Zepto for comments on the development. The story will be updated based on the response.
Zepto Cafe was launched in 2022, with a mix of branded and non-branded food items. The vertical boosted average order values as users order beverages and snacks with groceries.
The service offers 148 items, including beverages and snacks with a 10-minute delivery promise. The menu includes chai, coffee, breakfast options, pastries and savoury snacks.
Recently, Zepto, announced plans of its cafe service expansion into major cities on the back of achieving an annualised revenue run rate of INR 160 Cr from 15% of its dark store network.
Currently, Zepto operates its cafe service only in Mumbai and plans to expand it to 120 across cities, including Delhi NCR, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Chennai and Pune among others.
To compete with Zepto's cafe service offering, food delivery major Swiggy launched 'Cafe' to deliver snacks and beverages under 15 minutes, which is currently available in a few localities in Bengaluru, while its rival Zomato-owned Blinkit is also preparing to roll out a cafe feature in pilot mode in select cities, offering fast-moving snacks such as samosas and sandwiches.
This development comes at a time when the battle in quick commerce is growing thick with emerging players in the market.
For instance, ecommerce giant Amazon is set to pilot its quick commerce delivery service in India by the end of December, where it plans to deliver grocery and daily essentials to customers within 15 minutes, Amazon India country manager Samir Kumar said, a day ago.
Weeks ago, Inc42 also reported that PhonePe's ecommerce platform Pincode is piloting a quick delivery service in parts of Bengaluru, Delhi NCR, Mumbai, Pune, Hyderabad and Varanasi under which it delivers groceries and other products in 10-20 minutes.