Flipkart is testing food delivery with 8,000 staff and a 10% fee for restaurants

Picture this. More than 8,000 people who work at Flipkart are ordering lunch and dinner on their own company's app. Riders in "Eat-in by Minutes" jerseys are carrying those meals across Bengaluru. It is a test, and it is getting bigger.

On 20 October 2026, TechCrunch reported that Flipkart has grown its food delivery trial from a few hundred employees to upwards of 8,000, citing two people familiar with the matter. ET Retail carried the same report the same day. Flipkart did not reply to TechCrunch's request for comment.

So the details are a report, not an official launch. But the plan itself is not a secret. Here is what is known, and why food delivery is such a tough game.

Wait, Flipkart already said this?

Yes. In July 2026, Flipkart Group CEO Kalyan Krishnamurthy told Moneycontrol that Flipkart would launch food delivery in the coming weeks, Business Today reported. He said the company would first test the idea with customers, take feedback and keep improving it, and only then grow it.

He also said it would start in a few cities, not the whole country, and would be "a combination of a separate app plus also you will see it on the Flipkart app." The long term goal, he indicated, is a large food delivery business across India.

Think of it like a new chaat stall that first feeds only its own family and friends. If they like it, the stall opens to the whole street.

What does the test look like?

According to TechCrunch, here is how the employee only service works right now:

It sits as a separate tab inside the main Flipkart app, next to Minutes and travel bookings.
Restaurants come from two places: ONDC, and restaurants Flipkart signed up directly.
Flipkart has a dedicated fleet of riders through Ekart, its delivery arm. These riders are separate from the ones who deliver its quick commerce orders.
Riders wearing "Eat-in by Minutes" jerseys have started delivering orders on Bengaluru streets.

Two words need a quick explainer. Quick commerce means getting things like groceries to your door in minutes, not days. Flipkart Minutes is Flipkart's quick commerce service. ONDC, the Open Network for Digital Commerce, is a government backed network that links online buyers and sellers across different apps. Think of it like UPI, but for shops: a restaurant listed once can be found by many apps.

A big number counting up to 8,000 plus, showing how many Flipkart employees are now testing its food delivery service in Bengaluru — The trial grew from a few hundred employees to more than 8,000, as TechCrunch reported.

When will normal people get it?

Sagar Daryani is president of the National Restaurant Association of India (NRAI), which represents over 5 lakh restaurants. He told TechCrunch that Flipkart has told restaurants it expects to launch publicly by the end of October. It then plans to grow to five or six cities by the end of 2026.

These dates come from what Flipkart told restaurants, as shared by Daryani. Flipkart itself has not announced a date in public.

The big selling point: a smaller cut

First, how does a food app earn? Imagine a samosa stall near your college. The stall cooks. The app brings the samosas to your hostel. For that help, the app keeps a part of every order. That part is called a commission.

Daryani told TechCrunch that restaurants usually pay Zomato and Swiggy a commission of 20% to 25%. Flipkart has proposed a base commission of about 10%.

Bar chart comparing commission: Zomato and Swiggy at 20% to 25% of each order, Flipkart's proposed rate at about 10% — Flipkart's proposed cut is less than half of what restaurants say they pay today.

But commission is not the only cost. Restaurants also pay for ads inside the app and for discounts. Daryani said that once all of this is added, restaurants can spend 40% to 50% of an order's value on the big apps. He expects Flipkart to keep the total closer to 15% to 16%.

Here is what that means with simple numbers. Take a ₹200 order. At 40% to 50%, the restaurant gives away ₹80 to ₹100. At 15% to 16%, it gives away ₹30 to ₹32. That is a lot more money left for the cook.

Two panels: on a 200 rupee order, big apps cost a restaurant 80 to 100 rupees today, while the hoped for cost on Flipkart is 30 to 32 rupees — A simple sum using the percentages NRAI's president shared with TechCrunch.

Why food delivery is a hard game

Big companies have tried this before and stepped back. TechCrunch notes that Amazon shut its food delivery service in India about two years after starting it in Bengaluru in 2020. Google's Areo app also failed to gain traction. Uber sold its Uber Eats India business to Zomato in 2020.

The two leaders are huge. Brokerage firm Bernstein estimates that Zomato, owned by Eternal, and Swiggy together serve 8.5 crore to 9.5 crore paying customers a year, ET Retail reported. That is like a cricket match where two teams already own almost the whole stadium.

And cheaper fees for restaurants do not automatically pull in customers. Bernstein estimates a new app could save a customer only ₹20 to ₹30 per order by running more efficiently, TechCrunch reported. That may not be enough to make people switch, and the big two could simply offer bigger discounts to keep them.

Flipkart is not the only new face, either. Rapido's Ownly charges restaurants zero commission, and Swiggy has launched Toing, a separate app for cheaper meals.

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So what is different this time?

Daryani pointed out one key difference. Zomato and Swiggy started with meals and later moved into quick commerce. Flipkart is doing it the other way round: it already has a big shopping app and a growing quick commerce service, and is now adding food.

"Flipkart's quick commerce benefit will get passed on to food delivery, so it will be leaner, more efficient," he told TechCrunch.

There is also room to grow. Bernstein estimates the food delivery market is growing 18% to 20% a year, yet online delivery is still just over 15% of India's whole food services business. In simple words, most eating out and takeaway still happens offline.

What to watch next

Does Flipkart open the service to everyone by the end of October, as restaurants were told?
Does it really reach five or six cities by December?
Does the roughly 10% commission stay low once the app grows?
And will customers try a new app for their biryani, or stick with the habits they have?

For now, one thing is clear: the fight for your dinner order is getting more crowded.

Sources

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