Swiggy partners with Prime Minister’s AtmaNibhar Nidhi to bring over 36,000 street food vendors online in “the new normal”

Swiggy partners with Prime Minister’s AtmaNibhar Nidhi to bring over 36,000 street food vendors online in “the new normal”
○         Becomes the first food delivery aggregator in India to partner with the MoHUA; will onboard street food vendors from over 125 cities in Phase 1
○        This initiative by Swiggy and MoHUA has the potential to become the largest of its kind globally
○       Swiggy will list street vendors in tier 2&3 cities that are famous for their street food, like Indore, Varanasi, Gwalior, Vadodara, Visakhapatnam, Udaipur, Lucknow and Bhilai
New Delhi, December 10, 2020: 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 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 their 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. In an effort 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 giving Swiggy the opportunity 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.
Vijay, Shree Jay Potato Spiral, Indore
We have been running our stall for three years and it was doing very well before the pandemic. My specialties include spiral potato and vada pav. They are hot-selling items for both adults and children. However, even after the restrictions were lifted, our business did not pick up and customers weren't coming back. We then felt that since everything has gone online, why not list on Swiggy to reach more (and new) customers? After listing on Swiggy, our business started inching back to earlier levels and we’re already doing double the business we were doing seven months ago. If we are passionate about running our business and serving customers, it is important that we adapt to the times, especially since we do not know how long it will take for things to get back to normal.
Consumer Quotes
Priya Prakash, Chennai
We are so excited to know that Gehsiba Foods is now available on Swiggy. In times when we can’t step out, it was a moment of delight for me and my family to find that our favourite authentic South Indian joint was available online. We have always been impressed by the taste of the food here but when we received our online parcel, we were happy to see the good quality of the packaging as well. Gehsiba Foods has always been our go-to place and tastes just like homemade food made. We have already ordered it 3-4 times in the past few days. We are so glad that people beyond our Porur area will now get to try the best, and that it’s not just limited to our vicinity.
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.
Watch the Honorable PM interact with a street food vendor from Varanasi here
While we are getting thousands of our local food heroes on the Swiggy app, find stories of a few here
About Swiggy:
Founded in 2014, Swiggy is India’s leading on-demand delivery platform with a vision to elevate the quality of life for the urban consumer by offering unparalleled convenience. It connects consumers to over 1,00,000 restaurant partners and stores in over 500 cities. Using innovative technology, Swiggy provides a hassle-free, fast and reliable delivery experience. Every order delivered by Swiggy’s dedicated fleet of delivery partners engaged on a principal to principal basis, ensures a host of customer-centric features like lightning fast delivery, no minimum order value, live order tracking, and 24/7 customer support.