MUMBAI: Uber Eats, the world’s largest food delivery network and Café Coffee Day, India’s largest café chain, have announced a partnership to launch the country’s largest network of virtual restaurants, which will soon bring foodies a greater choice of ‘delivery-only’ restaurant brands exclusively on the Uber Eats app.

The first restaurant brand under this partnership is scheduled to launch in November.

This partnership will leverage Café Coffee Day’s robust and innovative F&B expertise, pan India café network with the technology that Uber Eats is renowned for. Uber Eats will help Café Coffee Day with data, analytics and insights to help identify food or cuisines that consumers crave the most. This will enable Café Coffee Day and Uber Eats to launch menu offerings as per evolving consumer trends, for multiple ‘delivery-only’ virtual restaurants.

Uber Technologies vice president Jason Droege says, “Using experience and lessons learnt in the virtual restaurant space from our global operations, we hope to provide our Indian restaurant partners greater growth opportunities. Our customers too will enjoy ordering and eating their favourite everyday meals at the tap of a button.”

Café Coffee Day chief executive officer Venu Madhan adds, “With this association we aim to take the goodwill and trust earned in the F&B space and combine it with new age reality of virtual restaurants to offer everyday meals that can be delivered to nomadic millennials at home or at work in a convenient manner. Uber Eats’s strength and expertise in the business of home delivery will ensure delight to millions of aspiring youngsters who have moved away from their homes with great quality products from Café Coffee Day’s virtual restaurants every day across the country.”

Virtual restaurants are digital-only eateries that allow business owners to explore new culinary options and reach a wider audience by using the space in their existing kitchen. Virtual restaurants allow partners to test new opportunities in today’s dynamic market in a nimble manner.

Uber Eats is currently present in 37 cities in India with a strong presence in tier 2 cities. In the last 3 months, the number of orders on the app has grown 6 times and Uber Eats is adding 100 new restaurants to its platform everyday. Café Coffee Day currently has a network of 1742 cafes across 246 cities in India.

Uber Eats started in 2014 as a small delivery pilot in Los Angeles and launched as a separate application in Toronto in December 2015. Since then, it has grown incredibly fast, and is now a stand-alone app available in 350+ cities around the globe. In India, Uber Eats was first launched in Mumbai in May 2017.