Proposal- Food Tech industry- Freshmenu Vs Box8

Introduction
Over the past 2 years, on-demand services have experienced a prompt growth,
right from delivery of food to facilitating services of housekeeping, beauty
professionals, tailoring and drivers all via the web, and through apps. The rise of
consumerism and increase in disposable income, and busy schedules are becoming
major drivers of the food tech industry in India. While majority of them are trying to
solve auxiliary problems (like delivery), there are few startups that have chosen to
own the entire value chain to get rid of any broken experiences at customer end.
The two contrasting companies chosen for analysis are Box8 and Freshmenu
Box 8
Box 8 is a Mumbai based on-demand food delivery startup which started as Poncho
serving only Mexican dishes in quick service format. It then went onto expand its
menu and rebranded itself as Box8. The company now claims its USP is to deliver
Indian food in a unique box that can be consumed easily on the go. The entire
process of food preparation is disintegrated into various small steps and designed
carefully to ensure high consistency and delivery. For example, only skilled
independent processes that do not require any cooking on gas are done at the
outlet. All the skilled dependent processes are done at the backend. When it
expanded to new cities like Pune and Bangalore, it has retained the same menu as
they believe that their strength lies in standardization. This standardization has also
helped them to ensure 38 minutes delivery.
Freshmenu
Freshmenu, a Bangalore based company delivers all day meals to peoples
doorsteps but was the first to create waves in foodie-circles because of its exotic
international dishes in the menu. The most unique features of this company are
constantly changing menus and serving chef prepared plated meals on demand.
Since setting up service level agreements and expecting standardized quality while
outsourcing is difficult, Freshmenu owns the entire value chain right from ideation of
the menu, to the ingredients, packaging and delivery. When it expanded to Mumbai
it ensured the daily menus are not completely same and are decided basis the local
tastes. It follows a city wise hub and spoke model so that each customer gets
served fresh food from a neighborhood kitchen. Inspite of providing a daily menu, it
also ensure delivery within 45 minutes due to its operations model.
Operations strategy comparative study
The following table explains in detail the comparison between Box8 and Freshmenu
on various parameters:
Parameter
Operations
Frontier
Cost
Flexibility

Box8
Cost Effectiveness: High
Responsiveness: Low
Since there is a centralized
procurement, Box8 enjoys cost
advantage due to economies of
scale
Inflexibility in terms of variety/

Freshmenu
Cost Effectiveness: High
Responsiveness: High
Since there is a daily menu, even
though a lot of items repeat across
cities Freshmenu doesnt enjoy
much cost advantage
Daily menus allow flexibility

Product
Process
matrix

process
Product Variety: High
Process Flexibility: Low &
Predecided

Product Variety: High

Process Flexibility: High (in food
preparation) and Low in operations