Foodpanda grew 10x last year, despite reports of it being running at a loss

“We never scaled down. We grew 10x the size last year. We reached the target of 70,000 food orders in a day very recently. In January we also hit operational profitability. 99% are automated and 100% are profitable at an aggregate. Our team grew too,” said Saurabh Kochhar, CEO, Foodpanda India and Chief Business Officer (Global), at SURGE, the Indian edition of the planet’s largest tech conference.

Though the government has done a lot, but it has failed to solve the basic infrastructure problem that every food delivery startup has to face in India.

“I think the challenges are more from the infrastructure side. Internet first is our first problem. We have more than 1000 food partners with us and to be able to seamlessly integrate with them we need technology and integrate them as such we are able to work on 2G connection. The third is to be able to know how to use this technology,” he said.

In India GPS doesn’t work, postal code system doesn’t work. In US they have maximum 3-4 houses under one postal code but in India there are about 40,000 houses under one postal code.

He even added that the Industry as a whole right now is going through an external pace where the sentiments are low. They do not understand the specifics.

Budget expectations

“There’s been a lot. Let’s see how much of it to come out. We definitely need a lot of clarity under that. Especially food tax is a mess. Every state follows its own taxation. This is a nightmare for us. We want a simplified taxation system. Second, some regulations around the market places. Currently online mediators and mediators are not regarded as a part of the market. There’s no law holding us. That doesn’t mean we are outside the law. Clear definition of how they are going to give tax benefits for 3 years.”

Future plans

Foodpanda wishes to be at least 2-3 times the size than what we are today.

Start Drone delivery again anytime soon?

If these regulations are cleared, we would like to do it. It is a great idea. We did it few years back but had to stop it due to government regulations. One should also note that Foodpanda do not have drone delivery system even in other countries though Saurabh thinks it is a great idea.