Swiggy's Access programme to offer cloud kitchen for faster services

You may soon have a delivery-only food option from some of the well-known restaurants not present in your city. Here’s how: Swiggy is expanding its cloud kitchen, which enables restaurants to start delivery-only operations in a city.

The firm plans to help partners ramp up inter-city expansions. “We spoke to Delhi consumers… they do not get quality South Indian food. There are leading restaurants in other cities waiting to expand. Our Access cloud kitchen is an option to do that,” Vishal Bhatia, CEO (new supply) at Swiggy, said. Access is a delivery-only kitchen space offered to some partners for an incremental commission.

Vasudev Adigas, a flagship South Indian restaurant from Bengaluru, will offer food in Delhi soon. Rice Bowl, a partner from Hyderabad, is already preparing and delivering food in Bengaluru through an Access centre.  

One of the biggest pains in the restaurant industry is property management, said Bhatia. “They need to deposit money, do lease and manage the facility. The failure rate in the restaurant industry is upwards of 75 per cent. If they don’t get traction in a restaurant, they make loss. We are asking partners to leave the property and facility management to us. We make sure the kitchen is functional, hygienic and is ready for operations from first day,” he said. 

The restaurant partner needs to bring his equipment and staff to start operations for exclusive delivery. Swiggy said this is helping the firm plug the food supply gap in the market while bringing incremental business for the restaurant partners. It has on boarded about 30 restaurant partners, a number of whom are thinking of expanding on Access. One such Access centre can accommodate four partners. 

Swiggy wants to expand the number of restaurant partners on the Access programme from 30 to 300 in 10 cities over the next six to nine months. 

“There is an incremental expense that we will incur for the kitchen but we will only seek an incremental commission. Once a threshold order level is reached, we will drop the commission rate. The intent is not to make disproportionate money but to cover our costs. This is where a partner will see a lot of value,” said Bhatia.