Food business booms as Covid spurs delivery demands

KARACHI: Nauman Sikandar Mirza, Chief Executive Officer of foodpanda, says the surge in e-commerce will help spur growth in the food industry. He said this during an interview with The News International. Following are some highlights of the talk:

Q. E-commerce has become big in the whole world and is also rapidly growing in Pakistan, especially after Covid. How do you see its future?

A. As technology continues to improve all the time, e-commerce too will continue to grow and its reach will extend to even more areas of human activity. The sheer convenience of e-commerce is undeniable. Many different types of transactions that previously used to be done physically, taking up a lot of time and effort, can now be done within minutes, without leaving your location, and with just a few clicks on your smartphone or laptop.

E-commerce frees up a lot of time for people, which they can now give to their families and friends and to pursuing other activities. In theory, there is practically no business activity that cannot be done with e-commerce - the only fundamental requirement is the availability of the right platform, as for example the platform provided by foodpanda for a variety of activities and transactions conducted easily online. Our innovation-based approach has effectively revolutionised the sector and made Pakistan much more visible in the tech space on a global level. foodpanda is perhaps the most well-known and most visible for its food delivery service, which is what it started off with some years ago. Since then the business has established several other business verticals, or related but independent e-commerce business lines.

So the future is bright for e-commerce as innovation continues to disrupt traditional channels of business.

Q. What has been your growth for the past 2-3 years, what has driven it across the portfolio, and how do you see growth in the coming years?

A. Our growth has been steady and strong; around 3x growth in order numbers in the last 2-3 years and we have seen a similar magnitude of growth in revenues as well. There are several drivers of this growth, including our focus on innovation and disruptive technology, diversification across functions, proactive engagement with the government to drive pro-business policies, like food delivery being allowed during lockdowns, etc, as well as some of our other big bets like exploring new verticals and cloud kitchens - which are also driving growth for the business.

I must also emphasise here that at the end of the day, the success of any venture or any company depends on its people. We made a conscious effort to build great teams, from the junior most employees, who too can be the originator of a great new idea, all the way up to the leadership team. Our ethos is to create, to build, to make a difference. The culture is transparent, flexible, and is filled with a buzz of activity and productivity.

foodpanda is a local, Pakistani success story. We are confident of sustaining our growth in the coming years as we continue to explore new ideas and avenues while growing our present business lines. The single most important learning that new start-ups and budding entrepreneurs can take from the foodpanda story is that you need to be bold and you need to be innovative all the time.

Q. What is the impact of your business on society at large?

A. Although foodpanda is technically not a social enterprise, the impact of its business on society is akin to that of a social enterprise, in terms of the business directly generating socio-economic benefits for a large number of people and for other businesses. Our business provides sole livelihood earning or additional income-earning opportunity to literally tens of thousands of people for eg delivery riders, it empowers thousands of women financially while working from home through our home chefs portfolio, with many of them having no other source of income, it greatly expands the business and hence the sales and revenues of thousands of restaurants and food outlets, and similarly grows the business of independent shops selling a vast variety of goods.

Thus, our business is positively impacting a wide cross-section of society, through financial inclusion, economic empowerment for the industry, scalable - particularly offering an economic lifeline to restaurants/home chefs/vendors/suppliers, etc during Covid, investment in the e-commerce sector to drive innovation and growth, and driving talent acquisition and retention by being an employer of choice in the country.