Asia's largest food and grocery delivery platform Foodpanda announced a 5-year multi-market partnership with the world's largest internet restaurant company Rebel Foods.
The collaboration, which marks the first of its kind in Asia on this scale, will see Foodpanda roll out Rebel Foods flagship brands and new jointly-created offerings in more than 2,000 outlets across the region.
It also aims to help restaurant partners and cloud kitchen operators grow additional revenue streams at little or no startup costs.
Pedram Assadi, Foodpanda's chief operating officer, said the partnership introduces a new digital-first F&B format to Asia.
"Foodpanda is always seeking 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 small and medium-sized enterprises [SMEs], new opportunities to earn additional revenue," said Mr Assadi.
A virtual brand is an online-only food concept where a brand exists digitally, with no dine-in presence, and offers food for delivery or pick-up from the outlet.
Virtual brands can operate from the kitchen of an existing restaurant or through traditional cloud kitchens.
A Foodpanda delivery driver on his way to deliver food. Somchai Poomlard
As part of the partnership, Rebel Foods will bring their culinary expertise, standard operating procedures and ready-to-deploy brands that are easily customisable for local preferences in any region.
Meanwhile, 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 partnership, which began in December 2019, saw Rebel Foods introduce four brands in Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Hong Kong and the Philippines through the Foodpanda network.
On average, orders for Rebel Foods' brands on the Foodpanda app 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 offerings.
Kallol Banerjee, a co-founder of Rebel Foods, said he was delighted to partner with Foodpanda and scale his iconic brands.
"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," said Mr Banerjee.
Food options from the virtual brands include Faasos, Behrouz Biryani, The Biryani Life, LunchBox and Honest Bowl.
The Honest Bowl is the brand with which both firms worked together to co-develop new offerings.
Beyond activating virtual brands, Foodpanda restaurant partners can tap into a variety of digital growth tools to attract new customers and boost exposure and visibility on the app to drive sales and reward customers.
This includes new merchant-growth features like pandabox, pandaclicks and pandapicks -- restaurant partners can take control of their business growth by easily activating these growth tools via Foodpanda's self-service platform on the merchant app.
According to Asean Post statistics cited by Foodpanda and Rebel Foods, the global online food delivery market is worth over US$35 billion annually.
Foodpanda's parent firm Delivery Hero reported its first half 2021 trading update that orders in Asia doubled year-on-year, as gross merchandise volume for the region grew 175%, surpassing the €10 billion mark.
Foodpanda alone reported over 70 million orders completed each month, which signals assuring signs that food delivery will continue to grow.