Late-night food orders surge on FIFA fever

New Delhi: Demand for night-time food delivery is picking up in India after years of being on slow burn, fuelled by the ongoing football World Cup and because of changes in the eating patterns and sleeping cycles of young consumers, industry executives said.Quick-service restaurants, food delivery companies and quick commerce platforms have seen a 12-15% increase in demand for late-night and early morning deliveries in the past two weeks, they said.

While part of this is attributed to the World Cup, being held in North America with live broadcasting happening in India late night or early morning, executives said even before the tournament, demand had grown 10-12% in the past 12 months.

Driving this, according to them, are the changing habits of youngsters who often eat and sleep late.Also Read: Cold war over ice cream - A three-decade old Vadilal family feud returns to Bombay High Court"Sleep timings of India's young consumers have changed to 2 am or even 3 am," McDonalds India (North and East) chairman Sanjeev Agrawal said.

"We're observing that the standard 9 pm dinner time has changed; this is driving significant change in order timings, and orders have now gone up further incrementally because of FIFA (World Cup)."As of now, 20% of the chain's stores in markets such as Delhi-NCR, Lucknow and Jaipur are open till 3 am, which cover deliveries across all demand clusters, he said.132058289'Demand Higher on Match Days'Some are open even till 6 am and highway stores operate 24 hours, he said.The most popular orders on the Swiggy platform in the 11 pm to 3 am window between June 11 (when the World Cup began) and June 24 were for pizzas and burgers, the food delivery company said.

Bengaluru, Hyderabad and Mumbai posted the highest orders among metros, while Surat, Thiruvananthapuram and Patna led in emerging markets, according to data from Swiggy.

An order worth ₹16,444 from a customer in Chandigarh was the highest during this time.Also Read: Sarovar Hotels plans to double branded residences portfolioOn Friday, India's largest quick service chain Domino's Pizza sent out 'service updates' to consumers on WhatsApp, stating that its various stores are accepting orders till 3 am.

Jubilant FoodWorks Ltd, the Domino's India franchise operator, had 2,455 stores at the end of March.The all-night share of deliveries is still moderate compared with the numbers during the day and the service is also subject to timing allowed by local authorities, said executives.Packaged foods companies are also witnessing a surge in late-night orders, with quick commerce companies enabling the deliveries."During match hours, the demand is around 30-40% higher compared to non-match days," said Jayen Mehta, managing director at dairy products company Amul.

Calling it the "FIFA spike" on select delivery platforms which are dependent on the local government permissions as well, Mehta said: "About 80% dark stores of some operators are operational 24x7, with deliveries going till 2 or 3 am and starting again at 5 am."Demand for ice cream, frozen snacks and chocolates, particularly on Blinkit, BigBasket and Zepto in metros cities and across the Southern cities, has been prominent, he said.While Swiggy shared its night-time order data, executives at other food delivery and quick commerce companies ET spoke with confirmed the increase in demand but declined to comment on record.Longer delivery timelines"We are seeing 2 am orders coming in from what we call internally are Reddit consumers.

What's on offer at that hour is naturally limited, but mostly we try to keep inventory based on data order history over 3-4 months," said a senior executive at a food delivery platform. ...