The pandemic has forced Indians to stay indoors, keep away from restaurants and bars, and test out new recipes in the kitchen (whether you like cooking or not). And while you may have perfected your sambar skills or YouTube’d “pepper chicken kozhumbu” for the dozenth time, sometimes the call to order dinner (or breakfast or lunch or tea) is just too strong.
Swiggy has compiled and analysed statistics for the past few months in the cities where the app has a presence to reveal how exactly India has been ordering and eating during lockdown.
Chicken biriyani took the top spot for overall orders, with 5,54,512 orders. This was followed by butter naan at 3,35,185 and masala dosa at 3,31,423.
And what’s life without a little (or in this case, a lot) of dessert. Swiggy saw almost 129,000 orders for chocolate lava cakes. Gulab jamun and butterscotch mousse cake came in second and third at 84,558 and 27,317 orders respectively. Speaking of sweets, nearly 1,20,000 birthday cakes were delivered to homes for celebrations during this time.
Swiggy’s analysis also found out when diners are most hungry. Around 65,000 meals on average are placed by 8 pm every day, the busiest hour for the food delivery aggregator, its delivery executives and restaurant partners. Tipping on average was recorded at Rs 23.65, though one person gave a hefty tip of Rs 2,500, the company release said.
Vegetables for home cooking were also included in the analysys. Swiggy delivered 323 million kilograms of onions and 56 million kilograms of bananas. And for days you didn’t feel like going all out in the kitchen? There were 3,50,000 orders for instant noodles.
As Indians ensure that they’re staying safe, distanced and sanitised during this time, there were over 73,000 bottles of sanitiser and hand wash ordered, as well as 47,000 face masks delivered by the company as well.