Is Amazon India beta-testing its online food delivery service 'Amazon Food' via a foodie fest?

India’s online food delivery service, ruled by Swiggy and Zomato, might soon receive a new gigantic entrant i.e. Amazon India.

The e-commerce giant’s new YouTube video for its ‘Great Foodie Fest’ reveals you can now avail food delivery from the Amazon app. You get to choose only from only “hygiene certified restaurants” and you’ll receive food in “tamper-proof packaging”. The fest will go on from August 20, 2021, to August 29, 2021, and prizes worth Rs. 30,000 is up for grabs.

Amazon India may have the pin codes when it comes to e-commerce goods delivery but it does not have the relationships and partnerships a Swiggy or a Zomato enjoys with restaurants.

As of today, Amazon Food is only available at the above mentioned pin-codes; they're all from Karnataka. But, when we tried to enter the pin-codes on the app, we could not go through.

The foodie fest appears to be a kind of beta-testing with a limited restaurant set before Amazon India fully wades into the online food delivery space that of late has been in the news for a not so happy reason.

A couple of weekends ago, Swiggy had released print ads for its Instamart's (grocery delivery) 15-30 delivery speed in Bengaluru, Delhi and Hyderabad. Once done, it would then wade into other cities.

Restaurants are unhappy with the steep commissions the food delivery apps charge and their refusal to share user data. So, the restaurants are urging customers to order directly from them via their delivery platform through a campaign called ‘Order Direct’.