Report: Zomato Teams With InCred For Loans To Restaurants In India

In an effort to provide credit facilities to its eatery partners, India-based food delivery platform Zomato is said to have collaborated with FinTech firm InCred. The country’s flourishing food delivery sector is among the segments most impacted by the pandemic, according to a report from IBS intelligence.

Zomato Chief Sales Officer Rakesh Ranjan said in the report that the food delivery business has made a formidable rebound but that the food service space as a whole is not near pre-pandemic levels. The executive said that the company has been at work on a number of programs to strengthen its recovery. Its partnership with InCred is among those efforts, he said.

“It will help our restaurant partners with easy, risk-free credit options designed to achieve their operational and bottom-line goals,” Ranjan said, per the report.

InCred provides small- to medium-sized business (SMB) loans made up of channel finance, term debt and capital debt in addition to education and personal loans.

“The COVID-19 outbreak has led to a sharp decrease in footfall, order volume, and bucket size within the food services segment,” InCred Head of SMB Lending Saurabh Jhalaria said, per the report. “In this context, platforms such as Zomato have enabled physical businesses to recover seamlessly. We are happy to join hands with Zomato.”

In separate news from the India restaurant sector, U.S.-based quick-service restaurant (QSR) chain Wendy’s is teaming with India’s Rebel Foods as well as Sierra Nevada Restaurants to roll out approximately 250 ghost kitchens, or cloud kitchens, throughout the country.

Sierra Nevada will also build out 150 traditional locations of the eatery in the country as part of a strategic collaboration meant to bolster Wendy’s footprint there.

There are more than 6,800 Wendy’s in 30 markets throughout the world, with nine brick-and-mortar restaurants in India. Ghost or cloud kitchens are remote facilities that cook food just for delivery.