FOODPANDA AND REBEL FOODS CREATE ASIA’S BIGGEST VIRTUAL BRAND PARTNERSHIP

Asia’s largest food and grocery delivery platform, foodpanda has signed a deal with Indian online restaurant company, Rebel Foods, which will enable restaurant partners and cloud kitchen operators to grow additional revenue streams, at little or no start-up costs, and aims to benefit local and small players in the food and beverage (F&B) industry.

With this new digital-first F&B format, both companies will aim to launch more than 10 virtual brands in over 2,000 outlets across the region, making this the largest virtual brand partnership in Asia, and the first of its kind in the region at this scale.

A virtual brand is one which has no dine-in experience and is only available from takeaways or delivery services using existing restaurant kitchens or traditional cloud kitchens.

As part of the collaboration, which has been agreed for an initial five years, Rebel Foods will bring its culinary expertise, efficient SOPs and iconic ready-to-deploy brands – which include Faasos, Behrouz Biryani and Oven Story – that are easily customisable for local preferences in any region, a statement said.

Foodpanda, meanwhile, enables hundreds of thousands of restaurant partners and cloud kitchen operators to plug-and-play virtual brands into their current operations to grow additional revenue streams, at little to no start-up costs.

According to a press release, smaller SMEs and restaurant partners on the foodpanda platform can adopt new recipes and utilise their spare capacity to grow additional revenue streams while creating diversity in their menu offerings.

The first phase of the partnership was rolled out in December 2019 when Rebel Foods introduced four brands across six markets — Singapore, Malaysia, Bangladesh, Thailand, Hong Kong and the Philippines – through the foodpanda network.

Brands already offered by the partnership include:

Faasos: Rebel Foods’ flagship brand that offers an exciting variety of wraps that stand true to its philosophy, ‘Surprises under wraps’.

Behrouz Biryani: A category leading royal biryani brand that makes every moment special with its choicest spices and premium ingredients.

The Biryani Life: Offering value biryani options as part of daily meals with consistently elevated flavours.

Lunchbox: Lunchbox celebrates local food with the motive to evoke a sense of familiarity and nostalgia with fresh ingredients and homestyle cooking.

Honest Bowl: A newly jointly-developed localised offering by foodpanda and Rebel Foods that offers a selection of food bowls with global and local flavours.

According to data, orders for Rebel Foods’ brands on the foodpanda app on average grew 40% month-on-month in the past six months, with more than 200 outlets across the six markets signed up to add virtual brands to their existing food and beverage (F&B) offerings.

Pedram Assadi, foodpanda chief operating officer, commented: “This foodpanda-Rebel Foods partnership introduces a new digital-first F&B format to Asia. foodpanda is always seeking new, innovative ways to change the way F&B businesses operate in a hyper-digitalised economy — we want to push our ecosystem further into the future. Most importantly, these virtual brands will give our restaurant partners, especially SMEs, new opportunities to earn additional revenue.”

In addition to introducing Rebel Food’s iconic brands to foodpanda customers in Asia, both companies have also worked together to co-develop new offerings under the Honest Bowl brand.

The Honest Bowl menu was especially created to suit the taste buds of customers in Asia, building on Rebel Food’s culinary expertise and foodpanda’s insights on customers’ preferences in the region.

Kallol Banerjee, co-founder at Rebel Foods, said: “Over the years, we have built some category leading brands in its current markets and a full-stack operating system which integrates culinary expertise, efficient SOPs and technological innovations together. We are glad to partner with foodpanda and scale our iconic brands with localized offerings across their network in Asia.”

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