#Logout 2.0: NRAI proposes jointly-owned food delivery platform

What seemed like a compromise between restaurants and aggregators after the much-publicised ‘#logout’ movement last year has turned out to be a temporary truce. Restaurants are gearing up to launch a food delivery platform that will have common ownership and will cater to all the players in the sector.

“Food aggregators have become the digital landlords for us, where we don’t even own that space and are heavily dependent on them for our customer loyalty,” said Thomas Fenn, Co-Founder of Mahabelly Restaurants at a town hall organised by NRAI.

On August 14, 2019, the National Restaurant Association of India (NRAI) had announced the ‘#logout’ movement to remove the distortion created by food aggregators through huge discounting.

"Aggregators have distorted a vibrant marketplace by aggressive discounting and predatory pricing," NRAI had said in a statement, last year. While the logout movement had just created a social media buzz, the current scenario due to Covid-19 has cemented the belief among restaurant owners that the industry needs to take back the control.

He mentioned that food aggregators have not made profits in the last seven years. “In the last five years, the commission charged by the aggregators have gone up from 6% to 24%. All these models have helped in driving their valuation than us,” Fenn added.

To overcome the delivery cost, NRAI has nudged restaurants to work in tandem with delivery vendors to utilise their existing fleet. With an array of new technology platforms like Dunzo and Delhivery, restaurants expect to strip down the delivery cost. The model proposed by the industry association is not without precedence. The restaurant association in Dubai has started working on its own digital platform which is likely to help restaurants reduce commissions by up to 26%.