Online Food Delivery Platforms: Jubilant FoodWorks gearing up to launch Domino’s for ONDC debut

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Fast food chain Jubilant FoodWorks is preparing to launch Domino’s Pizza on its Open Government Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC) platform, according to a report in The Financial Express.

“We are organizing ourselves to launch Domino’s on ONDC. Wherever customers are, we want to offer them Domino’s Pizza,” said Sameer Batra, President and Business Director of Jubilant FoodWorks. Batra also said that the company was working on technology integration prior to its debut at ONDC. However, he did not specify a release timeline.

According to experts, the food industry was ready to join the ONDC bandwagon, which challenged the dominance of food delivery partners like Swiggy and Zomato. Companies like McDonald’s, Biryani Blues, WOW! Momo, among others, has already joined ONDC.

Deep discounts have pushed ONDC’s daily orders to 25,000 a week, which retail experts say is a short-term strategy. “On the face of it, low prices make ONDC attractive. However, this does not appear to be based on the principle of eliminating inefficiency, but on the fair amount of support (up to 125 per order) provided by ONDC,” brokerage house Jefferies said recently in a statement. Her report on ONDC Jefferies added that once the incentive program ends, restaurants or customers will have to pay for delivery.

Jefferies said ONDC would have to charge restaurants higher commissions, which drive up listing prices and affect order volumes, if they decide to absorb the majority of delivery costs.

ONDC also doesn’t have a large delivery fleet like Swiggy and Zomato. Instead, you must rely on third-party delivery platforms like Shadowfax for delivery, which removes the costs of organizing and maintaining a fleet.

Experts said Jubilant FoodWorks has an advantage in this case because it runs its own deliveries — even for orders placed on food delivery apps — with a promised 30-minute schedule.

Jubilant FoodWorks has started a trial run of 20-minute pizza delivery in Bengaluru, with plans to gradually expand this express service to 6-7 other metro cities, including Delhi and Mumbai.