17 Months After Acquiring Foodpanda, Ola Shuts Food Delivery Business, Retains Cloud Kitchen

Ola has shut down the delivery business of Foodpanda, terminated 1,500 delivery executives and 40 mid-level staff, the Livemint reports. The company, however, has retained the cloud kitchen business operating under private labels- the Great Khichdi Experiment, FLTR brands and Lovemade.

Ola had acquired Foodpanda in 2017 for an approximated $30 million from German-based hero company. It was Ola’s second attempt into food business after failing at it in 2015 by launching Ola cafe. The ride haling company went on to invest $200 million into Foodpanda but ended up making losses.

Ola has been scaling its operation into Foodpanda over a few weeks and dissolved its ground team after delisting several restaurants and closings operations in several cities. Currently, Foodpanda’s App would only show one or two restaurants open for delivery in each location in Mumbai and the rest are stated as temporarily unavailable.

The company delivers 5,000 orders per day compared to rivals Swiggy and Zomato clocking around 2,00,000 orders daily.