Zomato is testing a new workplace food model in Gurugram that uses vending-machine-style fresh food pods to give employees quicker access to meals. The initiative, called Zomato Now, is being piloted at a few corporate offices in partnership with food and restaurant brands, according to people familiar with the matter. The machines are designed to make ready-to-eat food available inside office premises rather than requiring employees to wait for a conventional delivery rider.
The experiment represents another attempt by Eternal-owned Zomato to move beyond traditional food delivery and capture demand for faster, more convenient meals. It comes alongside Blinkit’s Bistro, which uses cloud kitchens to provide food through a 10-minute delivery model. Zomato has also already built a workplace-food business through Zomato for Enterprise, giving the company an existing corporate customer base that could potentially complement the new vending-machine model.
Zomato Now Tests Food Pods at Corporate Offices
The Zomato Now pilot involves installing fresh-food vending machines, described as food pods, at selected corporate workplaces in Gurugram. Employees at participating offices can access food from restaurant and food brands directly inside their workplaces.
The model changes the economics of food delivery by moving the inventory closer to the customer. Instead of a restaurant preparing an order after it is placed and a delivery partner travelling to an office, food can already be positioned inside the workplace.
That could substantially reduce the last-mile component of delivery time, particularly in large corporate parks where delivery riders may have to pass through security, reception areas and internal access controls.
Zomato Now: Key Details
| Metric | Current Detail |
|---|---|
| Service | Zomato Now |
| Current status | Pilot |
| Pilot location | Gurugram |
| Target users | Corporate employees |
| Format | Fresh-food vending machines/pods |
| Food supply | Food and restaurant brands |
| Primary proposition | Faster workplace food access |
| Commercial rollout | Not yet announced |
| Zomato response | Company had not responded to ET’s queries |
The company has not publicly disclosed the number of machines being tested, the number of participating offices or the scale of the pilot.
Why Zomato Is Testing Vending Machines
The workplace model addresses a specific problem with conventional food delivery: the final few hundred metres can sometimes take almost as long as the journey from the restaurant to the office.
Corporate campuses can have security restrictions, elevators, parking limitations and designated delivery areas. Riders may have to wait at reception while employees walk down to collect orders.
A food pod inside the office removes much of that friction.
Traditional Delivery vs Food Pods
| Factor | Conventional Food Delivery | Zomato Now Model |
|---|---|---|
| Food location | Restaurant | Inside/near workplace |
| Rider required | Yes | Potentially not for each order |
| Last-mile travel | Required | Greatly reduced |
| Office security delays | Possible | Lower |
| Employee waiting time | Variable | Potentially shorter |
| Inventory | Restaurant-based | Workplace-based |
| Main challenge | Delivery logistics | Inventory and freshness |
The model effectively shifts Zomato from being purely a delivery platform toward becoming an operator of distributed food-access points.
Zomato Already Has a Corporate Food Business
The vending-machine experiment is not Zomato’s first move into workplace dining.
Zomato for Enterprise allows companies to manage employee meals, team orders, events and other workplace food requirements through a centralized system. Zomato’s enterprise platform says companies can set meal budgets, define ordering rules and manage food expenses across locations.
The company also promotes daily employee meals delivered to office locations, bulk orders for workplace events and late-night meals for employees working from offices.
Zomato’s Existing Workplace Offering
| Zomato for Enterprise Feature | Use Case |
|---|---|
| Daily employee meals | Regular workplace food |
| Team meals | Meetings and gatherings |
| Large orders | Hiring, training and events |
| Late-night meals | Employees working late |
| Admin ordering | Centralized company purchases |
| Meal budgets | Employer-controlled spending |
| Expense tracking | Centralized monitoring |
| Multiple office locations | Pan-India workplace programs |
The new vending-machine model could therefore build on an existing relationship between Zomato and corporate employers rather than creating an entirely new customer segment.
Blinkit’s Bistro Provides a Parallel Model
Zomato Now also needs to be viewed alongside Blinkit’s Bistro business.
Bistro uses cloud kitchens to provide meals through a rapid-delivery model, with food prepared specifically for quick fulfillment. Zomato’s workplace vending-machine pilot takes the idea of speed one step further by placing food directly where consumers are located.
The two models could eventually serve different demand situations.
| Service | Operating Concept | Customer Situation |
|---|---|---|
| Zomato Now | Food pods at workplaces | Employee already at office |
| Bistro | Quick delivery from cloud kitchens | Customer needs food delivered |
| Traditional Zomato | Restaurant marketplace | Broader meal occasions |
| Zomato for Enterprise | Corporate food-management platform | Employer-managed meals |
This gives Eternal multiple ways to experiment with food consumption and fulfillment rather than relying on a single delivery model.
Zomato Has Tried Rapid Food Delivery Before
The vending-machine experiment comes after several attempts by India’s food-delivery companies to reduce delivery times.
Eternal previously experimented with rapid food delivery but eventually consolidated its 15-minute food-delivery effort under Blinkit’s Bistro business in 2025. Swiggy has also experimented with fast-food delivery through its Bolt service, while its separate Snacc service was later shut down.
This history shows that rapid food delivery is difficult to operate profitably.
Food has a different operating profile from groceries. Meals have limited shelf lives, quality can deteriorate quickly and consumers generally expect food to be freshly prepared.
A vending-machine model could potentially address some of these issues by restricting the service to high-density workplaces where demand is relatively predictable.
Why Corporate Offices Could Be Attractive
Corporate workplaces offer several advantages for an automated food model.
First, demand is concentrated geographically. A single office campus may contain thousands of potential customers within a small area.
Second, eating patterns can be relatively predictable. Breakfast, lunch and evening snack demand tends to cluster around particular time periods.
Third, Zomato can potentially analyze demand before deciding what food to place inside each machine.
Workplace Food Demand Advantages
| Advantage | Why It Matters |
|---|---|
| High employee density | Large potential customer pool |
| Predictable meal times | Easier inventory planning |
| Limited delivery radius | Lower logistics complexity |
| Repeat customers | Potentially higher frequency |
| Corporate relationships | Easier access to workplaces |
| Digital ordering | Allows demand tracking |
If the pilot works, Zomato could potentially replicate the model across large technology parks, business districts, co-working spaces and other high-density workplaces.
Freshness and Inventory Will Be the Main Challenge
The biggest operational question is how Zomato manages freshness.
A conventional restaurant order is prepared after the customer places an order. A vending-machine model requires food to be prepared and stocked before customers purchase it.
That creates a forecasting problem.
If too little food is stocked, employees may find their preferred options unavailable. If too much is stocked, unsold food could result in waste.
Key Operational Risks
| Risk | Potential Impact |
|---|---|
| Low demand | Food wastage |
| High demand | Stock-outs |
| Poor forecasting | Higher operating costs |
| Food freshness | Customer dissatisfaction |
| Machine maintenance | Service interruptions |
| Workplace access | Limits expansion |
| Food safety | Regulatory and reputational risk |
The economics of the model will therefore depend heavily on Zomato’s ability to accurately predict demand and maintain food quality.
Food Safety Will Also Matter
Any expansion of automated food vending would need to comply with India’s food-safety requirements.
This becomes particularly important because food prepared outside a conventional restaurant and stored for later consumption requires appropriate temperature control, handling and monitoring.
The issue is not unique to Zomato. India’s regulators have already increased scrutiny of technology-enabled food operations, including cloud kitchens and dark stores. In Delhi, food-safety authorities began inspections covering cloud kitchens and food-related dark stores operated by companies including Zomato and Swiggy in 2026.
A large-scale vending-machine rollout would therefore need strong controls around preparation, storage, replenishment and expiry.
The Model Could Reduce Last-Mile Costs
If food can be stocked inside an office building, Zomato could potentially eliminate some of the costs associated with individual delivery orders.
A single replenishment trip could serve dozens or hundreds of meals instead of requiring a separate delivery journey for every customer.
That could create a different cost structure from conventional food delivery.
| Cost Component | Traditional Delivery | Workplace Pod |
|---|---|---|
| Individual delivery | High | Potentially lower |
| Rider dependency | High | Lower |
| Food stocking | Restaurant | Pod/central supply |
| Last-mile distance | Variable | Minimal for customer |
| Delivery batching | Limited | Potentially high |
| Inventory risk | Lower for platform | Higher for platform |
However, Zomato would take on additional costs for machines, installation, maintenance, replenishment and inventory management.
The success of the model will therefore depend on whether savings in last-mile delivery can outweigh those additional costs.
Zomato Is Moving Toward a Broader Food Ecosystem
The experiment reflects a broader evolution in Eternal’s strategy.
Zomato is no longer simply an app connecting restaurants with consumers. Through its businesses and experiments, the company is participating in restaurant discovery, food delivery, corporate meals, quick commerce and cloud-kitchen-based food fulfillment.
The vending-machine initiative adds another layer: automated food retail inside high-density locations.
This could eventually create a network in which food is available through multiple channels depending on the customer’s location and urgency.
The Bigger Picture
Zomato’s food vending-machine pilot is a small experiment today, but it highlights a larger shift in India’s food-tech industry toward reducing the time and cost between food preparation and consumption. By putting fresh-food pods directly inside corporate workplaces, Zomato is testing whether location-based inventory can solve some of the limitations of traditional last-mile delivery.
The strategy also fits with Eternal’s wider push into rapid food access through Blinkit’s Bistro and Zomato’s existing workplace-food platform. The opportunity is potentially attractive because corporate offices concentrate large numbers of customers in predictable locations. But the business will have to solve difficult problems around freshness, wastage, replenishment, food safety and machine economics before the model can be scaled.
Looking Ahead
The immediate focus will be on whether Zomato Now can demonstrate strong usage and repeat purchases at the Gurugram offices where the pilot is being tested. Zomato will likely need to measure metrics such as daily transactions per machine, food wastage, average order value, replenishment frequency, customer satisfaction and the cost of maintaining each pod before deciding whether to expand the service. The company has not yet announced a wider rollout or detailed financial targets for the experiment.
If the workplace model proves commercially viable, Zomato could eventually deploy food pods across large corporate campuses, technology parks and other high-density locations. That would give Eternal another way to compete in the race for faster food consumption while potentially reducing dependence on individual last-mile deliveries. For now, however, the Gurugram experiment remains a test of whether convenience and operational efficiency can overcome the challenges of running a fresh-food vending network.
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