Digital Drive. Apps add flavour to your eating experience

It was late Friday evening and Manpreet Singh was to party with his friends as usual. After reaching home, he realised there was no food. He pulled out his smartphone and clicked the ‘Swiggy’ app. Some restaurants were still open.

With his stomach growling loud, he quickly scrolled for the one that delivered food at the earliest. Aaloo paratha and paneer paalak showed the shortest delivery time of 23 minutes. In a jiffy, it was in the order basket. And voila!

The Swiggy delivery boy was right at the door in 20 minutes. Welcome to the world of digital food delivery apps, which is adding a new flavour to your eating experience; it’s not only becoming a convenient option but also one that saves your hard-earned money.

Food delivery apps are digital applications that run on smartphones, helping one order food from various restaurants in your locality from the comfort of your home.

No longer do you need to search for that ‘menu’ which your favourite restaurant had handed out to you last time you visited it.

Food delivery apps constantly update details of the menu in all restaurants, offers, expected time of delivery of each food item and much more. Moreover, some guarantee delivery in, say, 40-45 minutes and a monetary compensation if it is breached. Swiggy, Foodpanda, Zomato, Faasos and Freshmenu are among the popular ones in India. Many of them offer food order services in the major cities of India, through a tie-up with many restaurants.

Faasos is however, a bit different, as food is prepared by them in a centralised kitchen and delivered to you.

Moreover, there are food delivery apps of popular eat-outs like Dominos’ Pizza, Café Coffee Day (CCD) and McDelivery.

While the prices on the menu for a food delivery app usually remain the same, whether you are buying it online or visiting the restaurant, there are exclusive offers that run on apps.

You should make the most of such offers that could eventually cut your food bills.

For instance, on downloading the CCD app, you currently get 100 free beans which is equivalent of ₹100. Freshmenu is offering 30 per cent off on your first order. Last November, when the demonetisation wave swept the country, Swiggy offered inaugural offers — giving a discount of 20-25 per cent on payments made through Paytm, Freecharge or Mobikwik.

Moreover, some restaurants — based on your location of preference — offer regular discounts of about 5-15 per cent on the food bill for ordering via the app.

The app usually updates its users of such deals through its separate ‘offers’ section.

Also, keep an eye on such offers by looking at websites such as coupondunia.in , which have a section on ‘food and dining’ intimating you of any deals and sharing the coupon code.

Your favourite eat-outs also have their own food delivery apps, be it Domino’s pizza, McDonald’s or CCD. However, you need to check if they offer delivery at your location. The McDelivery app currently is available for customers only in a few cities.

The reward offer for Café Coffee Day is quite interesting. On downloading the app, you get free ‘beans’. Also, for every ₹100 of order you make through the app for food and beverages, you get 10 beans. 1 bean is equivalent of ₹1. So, in a sense, you get 10 per cent discount by using the app. Moreover, you get 25 beans for making referrals.

While these apps get the usual bouquets for being user-friendly, they get their own share of brickbats too.

First of all, there are delivery charges levied on each order. It could be about ₹30 or so. This effectively rules out any monetary advantages from making orders of small value.

Moreover, there is much to be improved on the service. One app customer complained that his food arrived after two hours.

Some others felt the food was ‘stale’ and that the order had not been delivered despite the app showing that ‘it’s on the way’. With little control over food quality, most apps had trouble keeping customers delighted at all times.

Food delivery apps are available for smartphones on both Android and Apple platforms. Before you zero-in on an app, take a look at the user rating.

For instance, smartphone users on the Android platform can look at the average rating for various apps at Google Play.

Swiggy, CCD and Freshmenu score on this front with an average rating of 4.2 or more on a scale of 5.

McDelivery, in contrast, has lots of catching up to do.