Samosa knocks chicken biryani off its perch as India’s most ordered dish, says Swiggy StatEATstics ‘21

The unthinkable has happened. Chicken biryani topped Swiggy StatEATstics’ chart as India’s most ordered dish for six straight years, prior to 2021.

This year, the humble samosa became India’s muse, with about five million orders on leading food delivery app Swiggy (that’s one samosa for every citizen of New Zealand). Such was its weight that it was ordered six times more than chicken wings. Following the most important potato snack in India was pav bhaji, with 2.1 million orders.

But don’t forget about the chicken biryani, still a force to reckon with. In 2020, 90 biryani orders were placed per minute. In 2021, India placed 115 biryani orders per minute or two (1.91) biryani orders per second.

Over 4.25 lakh users made their Swiggy debut by ordering chicken biryani. It also topped the charts in Chennai, Kolkata, Lucknow and Hyderabad.

Mumbai, however, decided to throw a curveball. It ordered twice as many dal khichidis as compared to chicken biryanis in 2021.

If you consider dal khichidi a healthy food staple, it will make you happy to know that the search for healthy food on Swiggy doubled in 2021. The health-focused restaurants on Swiggy HealthHub witnessed a 200 per cent increase in orders.

Bengaluru emerged as India’s most health-conscious city, followed by Hyderabad and Mumbai. And, when does India order healthy? Mostly on Mondays and Thursdays. And please note, keto orders grew by 23 per cent and Swiggy saw an 83 per cent surge in vegan and plant-based food orders.

Swiggy’s food delivery service is present in 500 cities across India.

A city-wise look at food preferences on Swiggy. (Just look at what Delhi ate the most, the entire city preference list is surprising.)

Swiggy delivers not only food from restaurants, but also groceries, daily essentials, etc.

●Instamart delivered over 28 million packs of fruits and vegetables alone in 2021. Tomatoes, bananas, onions, potatoes, and green chillies were the top five fruits and veggies delivered in under 30 minutes.

●This year, Indians ordered enough tomatoes to play the Tomatina festival in Spain for 11 years!

●The total bananas ordered on Instamart outweighed the Statue of Liberty in New York by 2.6 times.

●Instant indulgence: 1.4 million packets of instant noodles, 3.1 million packets of chocolate, 2.3 million tubs of ice creams and 6.1 million packets of chips were ordered online. Chips were the top item ordered post 10 p.m.

●SOS, need it now: Over 70,000 packs of band-aid, 55,000 packs of diapers and three lakh packs of sanitary napkins were delivered in 15-30 minutes.

●War against COVID continues: One lakh masks and over four lakh soaps and handwashes were ordered online.

Swiggy’s express grocery delivery service Instamart was present in two cities at the beginning of 2021. Now, it is present in 18 cities.

Despite a growing inclination towards veganism, Indians continue to enjoy their meat.

●While chicken was India’s preferred choice of non-vegetarian food, ready-to-cook meats evolved into the new favourite category in meat this year.

●Across cities, chicken curry cut was the most favourite meat item. Bhubaneswar and Central Goa, however, preferred chicken legs and breasts.

●Biryani is not only India’s favourite dish, but chicken biryani cut is also a favourite on Swiggy’s meat stores. It was the fourth most ordered meat item.

Things India ferried in 2021 via Swiggy Genie:

●Food items approximated 48 per cent of the total Genie orders. Interestingly, over 20,000 of these orders were for pet food.

●Between April and June 2021, Swiggy Genie delivered over 600 meals per day, prepared by COVID heroes, such as Sathya Sai Trust, Hyatt Regency Delhi, Abhyutthanam Society, Massive Restaurants, Vogue Kitchens, as well as by home cooks and seva kitchens, especially to the recovering patients during the second wave.

●The “medicine” category on Genie registered an increase of over 288 per cent. Customers ordered a wide range of over-the-counter medicines, including homoeopathic and Ayurvedic.

Did you know? A Swiggy Genie delivery partner from Bengaluru travelled 42 km to deliver an Oxygen flowmeter.

●Food and grocery, followed by medicines, rounded off the top three categories for Genie deliveries.

●The long and short of it: The maximum distance travelled by a delivery partner was 55.5 km to deliver a food package in Bengaluru. The shortest distance? To a store 200 metres away from a customer’s doorstep to pick up a tongue cleaner!

Note: Swiggy pickup and drop service Genie is present in 68 cities.

Swiggy’s believe it or not - 2021 edition:

●Chennai turned out to be the most generous city, where a Swiggy delivery partner was tipped Rs 6,000 for a single order.

●Bangaloreans' love for dosas is awe-inspiring: Not only did Bengaluru top the charts for ordering dosas, but its batter was also very popularly ordered by people in the city, Hyderabad and Mumbai. Instamart delivered over eight lakh kg of batter in 2021.

●A biryani lover in Kolkata made a Swiggy Genie delivery partner travel over 39 km from home to bring her favourite mutton biryani!

●7-9 p.m. seemed to be the “happy hours” for food lovers, with maximum orders being placed then.

●Talking about happiness, a Swiggy Genie travelled over 43 km to deliver a box of brownies to a customer at the Hyderabad Airport.

●Pan Asian, Indian and Chinese were the top three cuisines ordered, followed by Mexican and Korean.

●Over 80 per cent of customers opted to pay online, instead of paying by cash on delivery.

●In a single order, a customer in Kolkata ordered over 15 kg of Hilsa (fish) from Swiggy meat stores.

Photo by kabir cheema on Unsplash