With over 20,000 biryanis, Dec 31 broke Zomato’s ‘India vs Pak day’ record

With Covid-19 keeping many revellers indoors even on New Year’s Eve, food delivery platforms seem to be having a hard time meeting the sudden spike in demand, with orders on Zomato alone going up to over 3,200 per minute on Thursday evening.

“Our order velocity right now is the highest we have seen in our life so far (approximately 2500 orders per minute (opm)). Surpassed India vs Pakistan day wala opm. And it’s only 6pm! I hope our tech lives through this,” Zomato CEO Deepinder Goyal said in a tweet.

About 45 minutes later, the orders per minute reached 3,200.

The data revealed that Indians are ordering pizzas and biryani in huge numbers from food delivery platforms.

“Curfews across various cities, intended to keep people inside their homes and safe will further boost food delivery demand tonight. I strongly urge our customers to order early if possible, and not wait until the last minute,” Goyal said.

“Insane amount of strain in the system right now. 1.4 lakh live orders right now. 20k biryanis in transit. And 16k pizzas; 40% of them extra cheese pizzas,” he tweeted.

In another tweet, Goyal wrote: “OPM 3,500. There are 1 lakh live orders right now. 1 lakh food deliveries in transit right now – between the kitchens, and the bikes. Never seen this before.”

Goyal, ending his live-tweet session, revealed that the OPM had clocked 4,100.

The Delhi Disaster Management Authority on Thursday ordered the imposition of night curfew in the national capital on December 31 and January 1 from 11 p.m. to 6 a.m.

The Odisha government has imposed night curfew across the state from 10 p.m. on Thursday to 5 a.m. on Friday to restrict New Year eve celebrations.

Zomato on Wednesday said it delivered 22 biryanis every minute in 2020.

The number of orders for pizza also increased steeply over the months as data from Zomato showed that from 4.5 lakh pizza orders in May, the numbers shot to over 17 lakh orders in November. (With IANS inputs)