New kid on the block food delivery business in new highs
Virtrans Capital (Pvt) Ltd, a holding company with plans to start at least two new businesses and expand three more under its umbrella, is trailblazing with their ambitions growth plans.
Their latest venture, FOODIE, an app based food delivery business which started as a needs-based service is taking off backed by their unique offering.
In an interview with the Business Times, Nirthaj Seelanatha, Group CEO and part of a young and dynamic team, explained that when the entire country was at a lockdown and most delivery companies were facing constraints to do their normal deliveries, many individuals as well as food outlets contacted YOU CAB (which is their cab company) and inquired about delivery options.
“Due to this demand, we saw an opportunity to venture into the food delivery business and started FOODIE.” He added that at the beginning in order to facilitate YOU CAB customer requests, a manual operation for food delivery was started even though the company did not have an IT platform at this stage.
The holding company is working on another subsidiary micro financing company, he said, which aims to uplift FOODIE and YOU CAB drivers whom the company prefers to call ‘ travel partners. They aim to start a Rs. 500 million air taxi service by next year.
Virtrans’ mobile app building IT company will venture abroad with their business, according to Mr. Seelanatha. He’s happy the delivery service is becoming popular.
“We are currently the cheapest food delivery service available. We are the lowest to charge a commission rate from our merchants, whereby the end user also enjoys low rates. We also provide direct delivery to merchants which other competitors do not do. Our app also has an exclusive tab for high end restaurants.”
He pointed out that one of the most unique features at FOODIE is that the delivery radius is quite large that they deliver upto Negombo and Kalutara. Direct orders to the restaurants are entertained by FOODIE which isn’t practiced by other delivery firms. “We also have the cheapest rates,” Mr. Seelanatha added.
FOODIE has 500 partner outlets currently, but aims to tie up with 500 in the coming quarter. By rent year, the plan is to increase the number of outlets to 1500.
Mr. Seelanatha noted that the pandemic had hit the industry real hard. The 28-strong cab industry shrunk to just five players. “This was mainly due to over 40 per cent of the drivers being from out of Colombo.” He added they will go public with the holding company in 5 years.