Making last-mile delivery more efficient

Dubai - Spoonfed offers delivery services at competitive costs by using in-house developed technologies

Dubai-headquartered startup Spoonfed has tapped into the last-mile delivery segment to bring in disruption to the logistics industry. Launched in early 2017 to help consumers order their favourite food from anywhere across Dubai has currently expanded its operations in other sectors.
Early 2018, Spoonfed launch a pilot B2B logistics platform to help restaurants, pharmacies, and e-commerce to deliver goods at a competitive price. The prices are up to 50 per cent more affordable than traditional logistics companies.
Spoonfed offers delivery services at competitive costs by using in-house developed technologies, which helps high utilisation of its fleet of riders.
Sudhir Narisetty, chief executive officer, Spoonfed, said: "We have raised $2 million (Dh7.34 million) till date. With the recent change in strategy, we are cashflow positive hence our monthly burn is extremely low. The venture has tapped both business to consumers (B2C) and business to business (B2B) segment. The B2C is our primary business of online food delivery, we have an extensive selection of restaurants for consumers to choose from. We also onboard restaurants at very competitive commissions rates. Which in turn helps us onboard a wider variety of restaurants choices to our customers. And for B2B, Spoonfed offers logistics services to restaurants, SMEs, pharmacies and e-commerce. Spoonfed strives to offer economically viable and scaleable last-mile delivery services in the region."
The online food delivery and e-commerce transactions in the region are growing at an unprecedented rate. At Spoonfed, the startup wants to address this market segment with world-class technology to increase operational productivity to the business in the region.
For consumers, they can expect to pay a nominal fee for delivery when ordering on the Spoonfed app. For B2B clients, Spoonfed works on a fixed, monthly reoccurring contract depending on the volume of the deliveries the client wishes to use.
"We are investing heavily behind the best customer experiences for our soon to be released online food delivery app. We think we should release the app in H1. We are building possibly the most efficient last-mile delivery platform for the F&B industry. We hope to have a minimum of 500+ partners and deliver several thousand orders a day. Finally, we are aggressively expanding to more markets where we will add great economic value to the businesses and help our customers lead a better lifestyle through the best-in-class products," added Fazal Kassim, co-founder and COO.
Marc Gaspard, an investor of Spoonfed, said: "In a very recent study, online shopping, direct selling, and home shopping are projected to grow by 78 per cent in Dubai between 2018 and 2023. Physical landscape and paying potential for convenience are certainly enabling the growth momentum of this industry. People want their goods to be delivered faster than ever, and same day delivery is just the beginning. But this is creating huge complexity, as the orders are small, and customers are geographically dispersed. Retailers' net delivery cost is increasing day by day and certainly is not economical, to do this last mile logistics on their own."
"Spoonfed understands these nuances very well. With their experience in the restaurant delivery, they have built a product that is unique, scaleable, efficient and economical. The cost to the retailers are very competitive and hence more and more merchants are joining the band. Above all, the inspiring vision the founders have motivates me to believe that, I am part of something bigger in the future," added Gaspard.
Echoing similar positive sentiment, Kiran Das, another investor of Spoonfed, said: "For me, it was the passion and belief of the entrepreneurs behind the company and the unique positioning of company as a last mile delivery solution in a growing market - and not just as another food delivery company in a crowded market - with the strong algorithm of 'Bridge' as the backbone and USP to back up the positioning."
Pulastya Vishwas, head of marketing, Spoonfed, said: "Spoonfed is at the forefront of F&B and logistics industries with our innovative ideas and spearheaded execution. We could experiment with ideas to provide services which no one else could provide. In the hotly contested area of food technology, where everybody is copying the other, we could cut through the clutter to actually provide reasonably priced services with unmatched quality that could disrupt the way things are done right now."
sandhya@khaleejtimes.com
 
 
 
Fazal Kassim, co-founder and COO.