India’s FoodTech Unicorn Zomato To Start Offering Its Own Product Line Of Dietary Supplements

India’s FoodTech unicorn, Zomato will soon start offering its own line of dietary supplements. However, the recent announcement made on Twitter by the company CEO does not specify when exactly these supplements will be made available.

The dietary supplements will be ‘made in India’ and these ‘useful meals’ as stated by Deepinder Goyal, Founder, and CEO of Zomato will be made available on the company’s app for orders. The dietary supplements will be delivered by the company’s delivery agents within quarter of an hour. According to the company sources, these products have gone through the highest possible quality checks.

The COVID-19 pandemic has made the world to place emphasis on preventive healthcare and by foraying into functional foods, Zomato could be eyeing a big market in India. With ever more busy lifestyles, body image considerations, rising awareness, India is witnessing a rise in demand for nutraceuticals. In a study by RNCOS and Asssocham, it is estimated that in India nutraceuticals market by 2022 could reach $8.5 billion from $2.8 billion in 2015.

Besides that, the consumption of dietary supplements that focused on fitness enthusiasts and athletes has increased significantly in the last few years. Companies like, HealthKart has been able to capture a decent market share among tier two and three cities in India. It appears that Zomato has been targeting a huge market that is still unorganized. It would be interesting to see how Zomato’s new vertical fares-up. Zomato will be competing with Wow Life Science, Himalaya Inlife, TrueBasics, HealthKart, Biotrex, and HealthVit to name a few in this new venture.

The company’s foray into dietary/fitness foods has come just after a few months it acquired Fitso, a full-stack sports platform in a deal worth Rs 80-100 crore. The sports platform offers a subscription service with which users can take part in sporting activities such as; basketball, tennis, and swimming, among others.

Zomato had raised $250 million (Rs 1800 crore plus) funding in February 2021 from Kora Management, Tiger Global, and others, increasing its valuation at $5.4 billion. Before that, Zomato had raised $600 million in funding in December 2020. In FY 2020, Zomato’s revenue increased two-fold to $394 million (approximately Rs 2960 crore) as compared to the last fiscal year.

Zomato founded in 2008 by Deepinder Goyal, Pankaj Chaddah, and Gaurav Goyal is one of the biggest online food delivery platforms in India. The platform allows users to order meals from restaurants and have them delivered. The company’s search app offers detailed information about restaurants which enables customers to rate and review the restaurant, as well as create their own network of foodies for trusted recommendations.

Zomato has a fleet of 150,000 delivery partners and offers its delivery services to more than 55 million users in about 500 cities in the country. The company is backed by an array of investors such as Temasek, Tiger Global, Baillie Gifford, Luxor, Kora, Fidelity, Ant Financial, D1 Capital, Steadview, and Mirae.