BigBasket enters 10-minute food delivery race in Bengaluru: Report

Grocery delivery firm BigBasket has stepped into the 10-minute food delivery segment, beginning operations in select neighborhoods of Bengaluru with a curated menu of beverages, snacks, and ready-to-eat meals sourced from Tata Group’s portfolio of brands, ET reported.

The launch marks a long-anticipated entry for the Tata Digital-owned grocery company, whose cofounder and chief executive Hari Menon had first announced in December 2024 that BigBasket would diversify into food delivery, expand its product assortment to over 30,000 stock keeping units in tier-1 cities, and enter the pharma delivery market through Tata 1mg.

The new initiative is now live in Bengaluru, with plans to scale gradually. BigBasket’s express food offerings draw on Tata Consumer’s joint venture with Starbucks and Indian Hotels Company Limited’s (IHCL) food delivery platform Qmin.

Starbucks operates through a 50:50 joint venture between Tata Consumer Products and Starbucks Corporation. Qmin, launched in 2020 by IHCL, delivers cuisine from Taj and other Tata-owned hospitality brands, and also runs a network of Qmin Cafes across Indian cities, including 11 locations in Bengaluru.

These brands now supply key items—coffee, tea, juice, meal bowls, desserts—to BigBasket’s new rapid delivery service. The move positions BigBasket alongside quick commerce and food delivery platforms racing to gain an early lead in India’s high-velocity prepared food segment.

Swiggy and Zomato have both made strategic shifts toward in-house kitchens and convenience menus tailored for 10-minute delivery. Swiggy is scaling its Bolt format, which relies on select restaurant partners offering slimmed-down menus, and growing Snacc, a separate ready-to-eat vertical. Zomato, meanwhile, has expanded its own brand Bistro to more than 100 kitchens across Delhi-NCR, Mumbai, and Bengaluru, pivoting away from traditional restaurant integrations for the format.

Zepto temporarily paused operations of Zepto Cafe in multiple small cities, mostly in north India reportedly due to supply chain issues. Around 44 stores were affected by the suspension.