NE FEATURES BUREAU
Swiggy, India’s largest food delivery platform, today announced the expansion of its Street Food Vendors program to 125 cities under the Prime Minister Street Vendor’s AtmaNibhar Nidhi (PM SVANidhi) Scheme. This follows a successful pilot that Swiggy initiated with the Ministry of Housing & Urban Affairs (MoHUA) in the cities of Ahmedabad, Varanasi, Chennai, Delhi, and Indore, through which Swiggy has already onboarded over 300 street vendors on its platform. Swiggy will list street vendors in tier 2&3 cities that are famous for their street food, like Gandhinagar, Vadodara, Rajkot, Jamnagar, and others, a company release said.
Swiggy has created a special destination on the app where consumers can discover their favourite street food vendors. At the time of onboarding, all vendors are registered with FSSAI. Swiggy will then facilitate a Food Safety Training and Certification (FOSTAC) in partnership with FSSAI and its empanelled partners.
The SVANidhi Scheme has received loan applications from a whopping 1.47 lakh street food vendors so far. From these, in the first phase alone, Swiggy will onboard an unprecedented 36,000 vendors to whom the loan has been disbursed in 125 cities, potentially making this initiative by Swiggy and MoHUA the largest of its kind not just in India, but globally.
Street food embodies the essence of our culture
Swiggy aims to bring every kind of food experience to the customers’ doorstep; this includes street food, which is an integral part of India’s cultural and economic structure and is often unique to each region. Swiggy also understands the changes and challenges that street food vendors had faced in the wake of the pandemic and which had forced many of them to shut shop overnight. To provide meaningful support to the street food vendors to revive their business and offer much-needed visibility, Swiggy is leveraging its platform and large delivery fleet to bring street food to the doorsteps of customers safely and hygienically.
“Even as we go through more stages of Unlock, there has been a long-term change in consumer behaviour regarding continued social distancing and heightened demand for online services like food delivery. As a platform committed to bringing the widest choice of food to the doorsteps of consumers safely and hygienically, we’re delighted to bring them their favourite street food which they have been missing for many months now,” said Vivek Sunder, COO, Swiggy.
“More importantly, street vendors are integral to the food culture in India and we thank the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs for allowing Swiggy to do our bit to help them adapt to the ‘new normal’ and embrace and thrive in the digital economy,” he added.
Enabling the right food safety practices in the world of online ordering
Swiggy has created a dedicated team to continuously explore and identify iconic, popular, and proven-safe street vendors on the platform. As a practice, all PM SVANidhi Scheme street food vendors must undergo a three-stage training programme before being onboarded. After the training and registration, all vendors are required to do a self-audit and demonstrate the standards they abide by. These standards are modelled on the lines of FSSAI’s guidelines to ensure that essential hygienic practices are observed.
Understanding that it is equally important to train the vendors on digital skills such as handling the partner app, menu digitization, and pricing, Swiggy conducts virtual one-on-one training and takes them through the process of accepting, preparing, and fulfilling orders on the platform without compromising on consumer experience.
By updating the Swiggy app, customers in Ahmedabad, Chennai, Delhi, Indore, and Varanasi can easily find “Street Vendor” under the restaurant category. The app homepage also has banners that lead users directly to a range of street vendor listings.
What street vendors have to say about being technologically empowered for the first time:
Siddhant Tathed, The Salad Kitchen, Delhi
When movement restrictions came into effect, the number of people who flocked our stall suddenly dwindled to none. Even my regular customers were concerned to step out, given the situation. Over the last 6-7 months, there was immense stress on me and my partner, and we were very close to shutting down the business. But then, we learned about being able to list on Swiggy. In 20 days on Swiggy, I have done more orders than in the past four months. Ever since we have come on Swiggy, more people have been ordering from us, including many old customers who found us on Swiggy too. We now have three times more to do.
Rajesh Gupta, Shree Ram Chaat Bhandar, Varanasi
I have been running my Chaat Bhandar for over six years now and have been known in the neighbourhood of Sundarpur. As Covid restrictions came into effect, all customers, including those who regularly came to my stall stopped, putting a lot of stress on me. I’m grateful for this new scheme by the government and this initiative by Swiggy that is helping vendors like me use mobile technology for the first time to reach customers. I have been on Swiggy for a few days now and it has helped me expand my customer base to those who are unable to come to my stall. This scheme is a true blessing.
Foodie’s delight: Jay, Ahmedabad
I can’t wait to devour my favourite street-style Chinese food from Vivek Chinese Food Joint and Jugaadi Adda, which I have missed a lot in these nine months. I have grown up in this neighbourhood and frequently visited the stall for their speciality paneer fried rice; they make it just the way I like it, with a perfect mix of sauces. Swiggy is truly a blessing for not just customers like us, but also for the street vendors, who will now have an opportunity to serve more people.
