With social distancing in place, home delivery for food is on the rise. But with that, commission to be given to aggregators is becoming a mounting cost for the already bleeding restaurant industry. And this gave birth to Bro Eat, a community platform for ordering food directly from your neighbourhood restaurants, helping them earn the margins they deserve and in turn, saving jobs! We spoke to Pawan Shahri, co-founder of Bro Eat, on how the company is supporting the local restaurants amid the pandemic:
1. Firstly congratulations on the launch. What’s the thought and concept behind BroEat?
Bro Eat is a delivery app started by the restauranters of the industry. In the delivery business, the overall percentage of revenue was somewhere between five to eight percent. For some restaurants, it was about 10 to 12 percent. After the lockdown, the revenue from delivery has been 100 percent. We had to ensure that the entire business becomes sustainable. Also, there are a lot of extra costs now, considering that we have improved our hygiene game. With all the government permissions and laws, we wanted to ensure that the products going to the customers are completely hygienic. Keeping all this in mind, we figured out that we wanted a platform that helps to generate orders and give the power back in the hands of the restaurants. That is how actually Bro Eat started. We are on a mission to help restaurants as much as possible. Restaurants now have to spend extra on safety and hygiene.
2. How can you place an order through WhatsApp?
We wanted a platform which is very approachable to everybody and there’s nothing that can be easier today than connecting to consumers via WhatsApp. This is the primary mode of communication for all of us right now. Rather than having people download an app, we thought of having a WhatsApp chatbot. We started doing a couple of test trials and the response that we got from our customers was great. People really vibed with the platform and they said it was easier to use Bro Eat.
“Bro Eat lets you order on WhatsApp making it user-friendly.”
Scan the QR code on Bro Eat website and you’ll be directed to WhatsApp. From all the growing platforms, we are going to try spreading the WhatsApp number. We’re trying to do three ways. Number one is we’re giving QR code. People will just scan it and save it. And it’s a verified account. You can just quickly have a conversation and get that going.
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3. There are already a lot of delivery aggregator platforms that we are used to. What is the key differentiator for Bro Eat?
Delivery aggregators charge 25 to 28 percent of commission to restaurants. The reason these aggregators charge this amount of commission is that they are providing services. So, they have a lot of manpower involved. They have a lot of app technical debt. Therefore the commissions are levied. But, even after that most of them are still unprofitable. In that case, they might charge even more to actually sustain their businesses.
“25 to 28 percent is too high for a restaurant to shell out on each and every order. Keeping that in mind there had to be a platform where restaurants take up a lot of responsibility which currently the aggregators are doing so that they can fulfil the delivery themselves. They also need to do a lot of work in the backend like uploading, menus, editing and updating pictures, etc.”
So, we are trying to position Bro Eat as a platform which engages with consumers for creating orders but at the same time handle the rest of the coordination and fulfilment themselves.
4. Is that the way you are operating by cutting down the commission and giving the power in the restaurants’ hands?
Oh, yes. Definitely. What Bro Eat does is that it technically generates orders and hands them over to the restaurant. We have tied up with experts within the delivery segment. So there third-party rider services like Dunzo and Shadowfax. The delivery fulfilment is done by them. And yes at the same time, the restaurant seamlessly needs to accept the order to prepare the food. They can have their own delivery boys or use services from third-party riders.
“Bro Eat is India’s first zero commission platform. We don’t charge any sort of commission for the orders to a restaurant. What we’ve done is we’ve put a flag back of five rupees for orders up to the value of ₹300 now. India is a market where an average order value is somewhere between ₹150 to ₹250 rupees. That means that most of the restaurants will end up paying ₹5 for the order.”
For restaurants in the premium category, we charge ₹10 per order. So that is how the first price model of Bro Eat is set. Now except for this, the restaurant has to pay about ₹35 to ₹40 if they end up using our delivery rider service. So this is massively cutting down on the total amount of money spent, Bro Eat gives them all the possible data when it comes to customer details. So you have the name of your customer, the phone number and the address. All the restaurants to try and re-engage with them like sending them promotional content. Basically, it helps them to re-engage with the customers. This doesn’t happen with the aggregators because there is no data transparency with the aggregators
Also Read: Popular Mumbai Restaurants That Have Shut Down
5. What’s the sentiment of people about eating outside food? Is there a sense of fear?
There are people who are even keeping the scientific facts in mind that yes, COVID doesn’t spread through food. If it’s handled in the right way, then you’re completely safe with it. From two months back to now, there’s a massive difference in delivery. The revenues have really shot up and 90% of the restaurants are doing more delivery.
6. Can you take us through the safety measures that are being taken to ensure utmost safety and hygiene?
Sure. So basically, Bro Eat is trying to aggregate as many orders as possible and give them to the restaurant. But we do it only once the restaurant has signed up for the required licenses and are following the steps to maintain the hygiene including wearing gloves, using sanitizer, etc. There’s a government document also that of all the restaurants are supposed to follow while doing deliveries. We are imparting custom education on how to handle orders once received.
7. Which cities are you currently present in and given the tough times, how hard or easy was it to onboard restaurants?
As of now, we’re live in Mumbai. We started our beta testing from Bandra to Andheri with a few restaurants. Now we’re already live with about a hundred restaurants between Bandra and Andheri. Currently, we have received interest from over two and a half thousand restaurants across the country. We’ve segmented them between different cities. Bombay, Delhi and Bangalore are the three cities where we are planning to start our operations first. As soon it is possible, we will settle down in Jaipur, Indore, Raipur and Gujarat. Delhi is the next city Bro Eat will go live in.
8. I believe you’re also taking home chefs onboard as well. Is that true?
India has a massive unorganized sector of home chefs and street food vendors. The reason they are in the unorganized sector is that there is no possible take developed for them to do business. People always look at bigger establishments and always ignore the smaller ones. This will follow for vendors. So we provide facilities again using Whatsapp, which is much easy for the home Chef or even a street vendor because they are currently using it. We’re opening up to both the segments. But yes, we will be onboarding only merchants with FSSAI with all the government regularly for permissions to have them. Also, there is no onboarding price. So yeah, we have really big idea is and touch wood. We’ve been getting massive support from the entire industry around this.
We’ve also made a WhatsApp community group where we’ve added leaders from different categories of restaurant businesses, pubs and bars. Cloud kitchens are giving their suggestions for improvement of the platform So we’re running this as a community business where everybody pitches in. We take a consensus from everybody and only then we go ahead and make changes just ensuring that everybody interests are taken care of.
9. You mentioned that delivery is currently without a commission but is that going to be in the long run as well?
As I said for now, for any order up to 300, the charge is ₹5. So on and so forth, the stock keeps increasing depending on the order value that has been placed. But at the same time, we mention that the platform fee is so low that we are trying to use that to basically cover the costs for our servers. We’re trying to support the community in every other way by keeping the fee as low as possible. So it doesn’t pinch any other.
Also Read: One In Four Restaurants In India May Never Reopen Again
10. It’s very disheartening to know that one in four restaurants may never reopen again. This probably could be a good option for them to run a cloud kitchen as well as get a delivery service with the help of you guys. So do you think that can be a good option for restaurants who are now contemplating whether to continue or to shut shop?
There are a lot of factors which are not in our hands. For example, restaurants are unable to deal with the landlords and that is a massive reason why a lot of brands are shutting down. A lot of restaurants have some sort of concessions from the landlord. We all need to come together and try and push this forward to get through this tough time. Moreover, understanding each other as human beings, if this is the core business from where all of us derive our bread and butter, so the only way to help us keep going for a longer-term is to support each other.
Also Read: Home Delivery Of Beer To See A Rise In Female Consumers: Bira 91, Global Marketing Head
11. Can you tell us about a few popular restaurants through which we can place an order.
If you’re looking out for Asian food, there are Royal China and Kuai Kitchen onboard. If you want your favourite Pav Bhaji then Shiv Sagar across the city is delivering while if you are a seafood lover, you have Mahesh Lunch Home. You can’t miss out their Ghee Roast. If Europe is all you want, the Chili’s is on board and you can order some great pizzas from them. For any cuisine that you love, there are the stalwarts of that particular cuisine on the platform. There are over 100 popular eateries with us at the moment.
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First Published: June 20, 2020 11:05 PM