Faasos to set up its multi-brand cloud kitchens in Dubai

Online kitchen and food tech venture FreshMenu announced the launch of its new membership programme, 'FreshClub', under which members will enjoy benefits like early access to exclusive dishes, free shipping, and discounted prices on most products.

Customers will also get a free 15-day trial period to experience FreshClub, beyond which they can continue the membership for a price of Rs 99 for three months, the company said in a release.

FreshMenu Chief Business and Technology Officer Pradeep Desai said “While the idea of memberships is not new, FreshMenu's control over the entire supply chain enables us to offer other unique benefits in the future.

FreshMenu an online restaurant that serves freshly-made, chef-cooked gourmet meals in a box, started in Bangalore and has expanded its services to Mumbai and Delhi-NCR.

A team of about 500, FreshMenu.com operates its own kitchens and runs its own delivery fleet to drive the entire process of food ordering.

FreshMenu received Series B funding in January 2016 of Rs 110 crore led by Zodius Capital with participation from existing investor Lightspeed Venture Partner and had raised USD 5 million in Series A round of funding in 2015 from Lightspeed Venture Partners.

One of the worries that we sometimes have with ordering food online from restaurants they've never heard of is whether the food is coming from some dingy hole in the wall with no concept of hygiene. It turns out that this is a common problem. Zomato revealed in a recent blog post that a survey of its users showed that 86 percent would prefer to dine at and order from restaurants that have transparent food hygiene standards. And 93 percent said that given a choice, they would prefer a place that is clean and hygienic, over a place which serves great tasting food.

It's not just Zomato saying this either Foodpanda got the same feedback from 65 percent of its users as well, and as a result introduced the Food Doctor Program in 2016, through which it would rate the hygiene and quality standards of the restaurants on the platform, through irregular audits and cold calls.

Zomato is following suit, and it's launched a new feature called Food Hygiene Ratings for restaurants on the platform. To begin with, this feature is being launched in the UAE and Australia, and the company sees the coming months as a learning phase, within which it should be able to provide ratings for 1,000 restaurants in UAE, and 3,000 in Australia. It's also started thinking along these lines in India, though there's no timeline right now for when the feature would be enabled here.

Zomato CEO and founder Deepinder Goyal said “Interestingly though, Zomato itself won't be carrying out these hygiene audits. We do not believe that we are experts in food hygiene, therefore, we will work with accredited third party auditors. These auditors are experts in their field and will conduct surprise physical food hygiene audits at participating restaurants. As the Food Hygiene Ratings initiative gains traction over the next few months, you will see more and more restaurants with these rating on the Zomato platform. And if your favourite restaurant doesn’t have a food hygiene rating on Zomato in a few months, it should give you something to think about”.

Food hygiene checklist will include whether the vegetarian and non-vegetarian foods are properly separated, the cleanliness level of the restaurants, and the food prep environment. Screens have to be in place to keep out insects, floors have to be free from accumulation of food waste, dirt, grease, and other visible obnoxious matters, while the store rooms have to be cleaned at least every two weeks, and the walls must be clean too, and there's a lot more to it.

Ratings will be on a scale of 1 to 5 (higher being better), and the hygiene rating for a restaurant on Zomato will be shown under its name, above the Order Now and Book Table buttons on the app. Tapping it will show a detailed breakdown of different elements, such as the premises, personal hygiene of the staff, pest control, and food handling.

The e-commerce giant said that it is partnering with online ordering platform Olo, in a deal that could boost the number of restaurant chains on its Amazon Restaurants delivery service. Under the deal, restaurants that use Olo can list their menus on Amazon Restaurants. The restaurants would prepare orders and Amazon would provide a worker to deliver it to the customer. Olo says 200 restaurant chains use its platform, including burrito seller Chipotle. Amazon wants to deliver more burritos and hamburgers to people doorstep.

The move is the latest by Seattle-based Amazon.com Inc. to try and shake-up how people buy food. This summer it bought grocer Whole Foods for $13.7 billion.

The malicious outsider attack on food delivery app Zomato that exposed 17 million records was the sixth biggest data breach globally in the first half of 2017, a new report said on Thursday. According to the "Breach Level Index" released by digital security firm Gemalto, a total of 203.7 million data records were compromised in 18 data breaches in India in the first half.

Compared to the last six months of 2016, the number of lost, stolen or compromised records increased by 167 million with 61 per cent of data breach incidents being identity theft. The continuous attacks on Aadhaar data was another significant data breach related to financial access and identity theft in the country.

.Jason Hart, Vice President and CTO, Data Protection said in a statement that
"IT consultant CGI and Oxford Economics recently issued a study, using data from the Breach Level Index and found that two-thirds of firms breached had their share price negatively impacted," said
A total of 918 data breaches were recorded worldwide, in which more than 500 (59 per cent) had an unaccounted number of compromised data records.

The primary sources of data breaches included malicious outsiders, accounting for 74 per cent of the total an increase of 23 per cent from last six months of 2016.

Digital ordering lets companies better track customer's spending habits, and may lead to increasingly personalized offers that are more likely to catch our attention.

About 60 percent of Domino's orders now come through the chain's website, app and other digital channels. 

And people tend to order more online than over the phone, says Domino's spokesman Tim McIntyre _ likely because they can browse the menu and take their time deciding. That can result in people getting another pizza topping, or adding sides.

"They tend to upsell themselves,'' McIntyre said of online customers.

Domino's also has prompts during the ordering process. Once a pizza is ordered, for instance, people might be asked if they want to "cheese it up,'' or add drinks near checkout. Employees taking orders by phone are also encouraged to suggest extras _ a tactic known as "upselling'' or "suggestive selling.'' But McIntyre says the human attempts aren't as consistent.

"The computer never feels rushed, the computer never feels rejection personally,'' he said, noting that some employees might be shyer than others.

Tabletop tablets being used at some sit-down restaurants, which let people order food and pay for their meals, can have a similar effect. Ziosk, the company that makes the devices available at chains including Chili's and Olive Garden, said restaurants see more orders of dessert and appetizers with Ziosk devices. Dessert orders also tend to have more coffees attached to them, said Ziosk CEO Austen Mulinder.

"The Ziosk will always remember to ask, "Do you want to add coffee to that?''' he said.

Most restaurants that use Ziosk devices use them to let people order appetizers, desserts and drinks. With entrees, Mulinder said it makes more sense for a server to take the order, rather than having people passing around a device.

Chili's has cited other benefits of Ziosk, including the collection of customer spending data. The devices also generate money from games that people can play while waiting. That revenue more than offsets the cost of the devices in most cases, Mulinder says.

Starbucks is pushing into more personalized offers for loyalty members and mobile app users, which include the recent rollout of "real-time'' suggestive selling based on past purchases for people ordering ahead on their smartphones. The company says the efforts are yielding positive results, with spending by loyalty members up by 8 percent in the latest quarter.

"We think that the steps we've taken regarding personalization are a driver of that,'' spokeswoman Maggie Jantzen said.

The company has also been turning the acquisition of reward points into games. That includes ones like "Starbucks Bingo'' that reward members for making particular purchases.

Panera's loyalty program also incorporates members' past purchases. Unlike in most programs, Panera loyalty members do not know when they'll get their next reward, or what it will be. Blaine Hurst, Panera's president, says customers can be placed into one of "thousands'' of rewards tracks based on their spending habits. If their spending habits change, they can shift into different tracks.

Clicktable, debuts in online restaurant reservation platform in India. It is an intuitive platform that helps diners avail amazing dining offers at best restaurants in the city. Moreover, the platform claims to offer real-time reservation confirmation at many restaurants. The platform has currently been launched in Delhi NCR. There are over 600 restaurants, bars and lounges available on the platform.

Clicktable is venture of the 33 year old, Varun Gupta, a computer engineer from Purdue University, USA and an MBA from Columbia University, New York. He has been involved in his family business – Kent RO Systems Ltd in India.

Varun said, "The perpetual hunt of a foodie to dine at his desired restaurants is never ending. But nothing ruins a perfect dining experience than having to wait to relish one’s favorite food simply because the restaurant is full."

He added, "It is here that, Clicktable comes to the rescue. We aim to streamline restaurant reservation process by removing the hassles of calling restaurants for availability and reservation confirmation. Another feature that makes Clicktable standout from other players is that only actual diners can review restaurants on Clicktable platform, preventing bloggers and spammers from creating artificial ratings."

On an aggressive expansion spree, the company is charting out its launch plans in major metros including Mumbai, Bangalore, Hyderabad and Pune.

Zomato, an online restaurant and food ordering site, is planning to make investments in food delivery and new business such as cloud kitchens.

The company has started looking for new funding round after increasing its net revenue and cutting burn rate over the past 12 months.

As per the sources, the Gurgaon-based company has lined up with Morgan Stanley, a global investment bank to raise the new financing round.

Deepinder Goyal, CEO, Zomato, said that it was planned to start fundraising in March-April, 2017 but keeping in mind the inbound interest it would make sense only if it starts now.

He also said that it is raising the round to accelerate its own growth.

While the size of the round and valuation could not be determined, it’s expected to be larger than its previous $60 million the company raised in September 2015 as it takes on Bengaluru-based rival Swiggy in the food delivery business.

By Nusra

In the last few months, India has emerged as a home to food start-ups with investors putting in their money into the fast emerging segment which is growing at around 17 per cent annually.

Leaping Caravan, a Delhi-based online restaurant that serves Indian cuisine to corporate customers in Delhi and Gurgaon, has raised around $150,000 (about Rs 1 crore) from the group of angel investors.

“The funds will help us grow the business at a monthly rate of 50 per cent as will use the raised amount for expansion, stringent marketing, technology enhancement, manpower acquisition and up-gradation of operations of the brand,” shared Megha Tuli, Founder & CEO, Leaping Caravan.

The group is also planning to set-up another delivery centre in Delhi targeting at an increase in the number of orders it gets daily.

At present, Leaping Caravan gets around 30 orders every day and the initial round of funding might help them get nearly 100 orders on a daily basis.

“Moreover, 70 per cent of the orders come through the website as of now and 60 per cent customers are corporate players,” added Tuli who holds a B.Sc degree in International Hospitality Management from Ecole Hotelier de Lausanne (EHL) in Switzerland and has a finance and hospitality background.