India's Surprising Regional Food Preferences

India's Surprising Regional Food Preferences

Have you ever wondered why we end up ordering more food items / dishes than the number of people on the tables? India has a rich, diverse culture and food is very much ingrained in most aspects to maintain one’s cultural identity in India. However with rising urbanisation and access to content on food and increasing domestic travel, the popularity of dishes has taken new highs. For instance, Butter Chicken, a traditional Delhi / North Indian dish, finds many patrons all across India. There are similar stories about Biryani, Momos, Dosa, Idli, and almost all Indo Chinese cuisine. These dishes originated from one part of India but are now universally popular.

‍

Understanding these local or hyperlocal preferences is a crucial game changer for the restaurant / cloud kitchen industry. Both Swiggy and Zomato restrict the visibility of their restaurant partners in 5 to 6 KM radius. Thus a well curated menu is the first step in getting success in this highly competitive market. Imagine if we could analyse data right at pincode level – and not just a survey of a few hundred people rather high volume data of real transactions. Well, my friends, look no further...

‍

This infographic is exactly that – data of real food delivery orders (nearly 600K orders in Q4 2021). As we capture data directly from email receipts thus which dishes are ordered at pincode level can be analysed and can be a huge strategic advantage for cloud kitchens to use for their menu planning.

On a different note! – In the past many drums have been beaten to celebrate the supremacy of Biryani in the Food Delivery space – But Biryani really is a South and West Zone phenomenon. Northern India states have a higher contribution to fast foods like Burgers and Pizzas!

Keep watching this space for peeling off another layer in the evolution of the Food Delivery market in India.

_____________________________________________________________________

Blog written by : Anupam Asthana

Date: 30 Mar 2022

‍

Vumonic Datalabs is a global consumer intelligence platform. We provide high quality, deterministically linked, large structured data that can be used to derive deep consumer,  business and market insights. Our proprietary data pipelines deliver unbiased actual transaction data collected in a privacy secure manner via large global panels.

‍