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Quick-commerce food entry
What it is
Ten-to-fifteen-minute delivery platforms extending from groceries into prepared food, ready-to-eat and packaged meals, using dark stores rather than restaurant kitchens
India's quick commerce gross order value reached around Rs 64,000 cr in FY25 and is projected to triple by FY28
Impact on industries
- Competes directly for the same occasion - a consumer wanting food in fifteen minutes now has an option that bypasses restaurants entirely
- Dark-store economics differ fundamentally from restaurant economics, with no dine-in fixed costs to cover, so price competition is asymmetric
- Also a distribution opportunity for packaged and branded food, since the same channel carries restaurant-brand retail products
- Speed is the battleground rather than food quality, which is why chains have invested in twenty-minute delivery promises of their own