Uber Eats partners with CCD, to launch first-of-its-kind virtual restaurant

Uber Eats, the food delivery arm of global cab-hailing company Uber, has partnered with Cafe Coffee Day (CCD), to launch a first-of-its-kind virtual restaurant.

With the new initiative, Uber Eats will be looking to leverage Cafe Coffee Day’s vast network of 1,700 outlets to deliver across India. The virtual restaurants will be delivery-only restaurant brands.

The service will be first rolled out across 10 CCD’s in Bengaluru with its first brand, which will be launched next month. Using the data and insights regarding customer trends and behaviour, Uber will further expand the service to other CCD outlets.

Differentiating virtual restaurants from cloud kitchens and recently launched Swiggy Access, Bhavik Rathod, Head Uber Eats India and South Asia, said, “A virtual kitchen is a tie-up with a restaurant that has a storefront, and the kitchen space, where the existing kitchen space is being used to create multiple food brands primarily for delivery. We are not creating a kitchen infrastructure space and inviting restaurant partners to give them access to different locations.”

Uber Eats was launched in 2015, it entered India in May 2017. It has since then expanded across 37 cities in India, the latest partnership is expected to further boost its delivery network.

In the food delivery domain, Uber Eats competes with foodtech giants Zomato and Swiggy, who already have a stronghold in the market. Another foodtech player Ola-owned Foodpanda is looking to close the gap between with the market leaders, through aggressive customer acquisition and expansion.

With the Indian food delivery market expected to touch $2.5 billion by 2021, from $700 million, according to consulting firm RedSeer, the battle for market share is only expected to heat up.

Here is a look at the recent happenings in the Indian foodtech space:

Earlier this month, Foodpanda India expanded its delivery network to another 30 cities, expanding to 50 cities. The foodtech startup also acquired Holachef, in order to build its cloud kitchen network.

Also this month, Zomato received another ₹1,550 crores from Ant Financial, further strengthing its coffers.

Featured Image Courtesy : The Fresh Images