Food ordering portal Foodpanda has tied up with Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC), Indian Railways’ catering, tourism and online ticketing platform, for order and delivery of food to the passengers.
Passengers can now order meals of their choice through Foodpanda’s aggregator model, and allow them to order from a wide variety of cuisine options. To ensure that food reaches consumers in the best condition, Foodpanda will deploy its own delivery fleet to fulfil all deliveries.
The service will be initially launched at the New Delhi Railway station post which it will be rolled out to Mumbai, Bengaluru, Pune and Chennai. The customers will have the choice to order meals at-least 2 hours in advance of the travel. The delivery will be aligned to the train arrival time at the station and consumers can pay for the order in advance online or make on the spot cash payment as per their convenience, the company said in a statement.
Saurabh Kochhar, CEO, Foodpanda said, “Our association with IRCTC will be an offering which addresses a huge consumer need prevailing for years. For long, consumers had limited food options to choose from while travelling with Indian railways but the newly launched e-catering service by IRCTC (approved by Ministry of Railways) is set to change the way Indians eat while travelling.”
Prior to this, IRCTC had partnered with food delivery startups such as Travelkhana.com and hellocurry.com. Besides start-ups, reputed food chains like McDonald’s, KFC, Switz Foods, Only Alibaba, Dominos, Haldiram, Bikanerwala, Nirualas, Sagar Ratna, Pizza Hut which have a wide variety in menu have entered into a tie-up with IRCTC to serve the passengers passing through these stations.