MUMBAI: Dinner or lunch?
Is that a no-brainer for all of us?
Not really. We thought it woud be an equal split between the two. But India’s online meal buyers placed a whopping 215 million dinner orders in 2024 - nearly 29 per cent higher than lunch orders on Swiggy.
It raises the question: why the gap?
Are Indians resorting increasingly to intermittent fasting?
Or is it that work pressure Is making them skip lunch?
Or is it that somehow or the other they are able to prepare their lunch and lug it with them to the office?
Or is it that India can cook lunch at home unlike dinner for which the double income families (that are increasing in number) have no energy left traveling home long distances from work in the evening? Hence, an increasing number of them is ordering in.
Be that as it may, this and lots of other nuggets of information have emerged from Swiggy‘s ninth annual report How India Swiggy’d in 2024.
Breakfast
Breakfast is often hailed as the most crucial meal of the day and prepares us to face the day with gusto! But does it remain a bastion of wholesome goodness, a sanctuary of nutritious beginnings? Or do guilty indulgences take over?
South Indian favourite, with 8.5 million dosas and 7.8 million idlis were way up front ahead of the rest. as breakfast True to its roots, Bengaluru enjoyed an incredible 2.5 million masala dosas in 2024, while Delhi, Chandigarh, and Kolkata couldn’t do without their classic crowd pullers of chole, aloo parantha and kachoris, respectively.
Snackables
Munchies and snackables were the best accompaniments to get through a day that is not going your way or a day that you just cannot forget. They go well for consumers who can't stop biting their nails at work, the ones who are set for a late night horror movie binge, watching that nail-biting football match, or finishing a last minute presentation. The chicken roll proved to be the utimate khiladi as the nation’s most ordered snack in 2024, with a staggering 2.48 million orders. Hot on its heels were the crowd-favorite chicken momos at 1.63 million orders, while potato fries stayed in the game with a crunchy 1.3 million orders, showing they’re no side dish in this meaty contest!
The chicken burger proved to be the ultimate midnight indulgence with a staggering 1.84 million orders between 12–2 AM! Chicken biryani as a close second, continued to be the evergreen superstar- a 24x7 obsession! But the real night owl award goes to a Delhi user who ordered a jaw-dropping 250 Onion Pizzas in a single order—sounds like a wild pizza party!
Desserts
2024 was the year when Indians developed a real sweet tooth for chocolate desserts by ordereing 3.6 million choco lava cakes and 2.27 million chocolate truffle cakes. The Hyderabadis kept ordering shahi tukda while Ludhiani-ites opted for block forest cake. Falooda was the favorite of the folks in Kozhikode and Kochi. Additionally, that Indians are mama’s boys and girls was proved by the number of cakes they ordered for their mums on Mother’s Day: 193 cakes per minute, making it the country’s unofficial cake day. Diwali strangely was the day when surprisingly 11.4 million milk cakes were ordered. Milk cakes? And we thought Indian sweets like kaju katri and barfis were out favourites. Ganesh chathurti is the festival when Mumbaikar immerse their beloved Ganpati Bappa, but a modak sweet is a necessary accompaniment and Mumbaikars went for it with full gusto ordering 2,26,393 of them.
Biriyani reigns
One of the most interesting pieces of data that has emerged is that Indians love biriyani more than any other dish. Late into the night, growling bellies ordered 83 million biriyanis, making for 158 orders a minute or roughly two biriyanis a second. Ramzan accounted for six million of these orders. Biriyani orders rose 15 per cent, haleem rose 1445 per cent, phirni 85 per cent, malpua 79 per cent, falooda 58 per cent and dates 48 per cent during the iftaar perod.
Which of the cities hogged the most of this spicy rice-potato-chicken-mutton-vegetarian meal? It’s not Hyderabad, if that was your guess, it’s actually Chennai which placed 46 million biriyani orders in 2024,; Hyderabad the city of nawabs, the city which serves the best biriyani in India accounted for only 9.7 million of the orders, with Bengaluru coming in at third spot with 7.7 million orders.
Indians tend to prefer the chicken variety of biriyani with 49 million orders being for chicken biriyani. The figure for mutton biriyani is just a paltry 2.2 million. Remarkably, buzz of mouth regarding this dish resulted in 2.8 million newbies on the app choosing biriyani as their first order.
The How India Swiggy’d 2024 report also came up with some other interesting findings:
* In a chicken-heavy lineup, the humble dosa stole the show! 23 million orders and counting—this is the true culinary hit.
* Move over mammoth movie budgets in 2024! A single consumer in Bengaluru spent Rs 49,900 on a pasta extravaganza, devouring almost 55 Alfredo dishes, 40 mac & cheese, and 30 spaghetti plates.
* How could we have a hero recap without the new and swanky Bolt? In Bikaner, a dessert lover’s sweet tooth couldn’t wait, and neither could Bolt! In just three minutes, a delivery partner zoomed in with a trio of frozen delights: chocochips, strawberry, and roasted almond ice-cream from NIC Ice creams.
* Continuing the reign of the sweet tooth on Bolt, rasmalai and sitaphal ice cream topped the charts as the most-ordered delights to curb hunger pangs in 10 minutes.
* Turning our gaze towards eats of the east…. Move over momos, because noodles are stealing the spotlight in Shillong! This city’s love for these slurpy strands is unmatched, making it the most ordered dish of 2024 in the city.
* Swiggy delivery partners clocked an epic 1.96 billion kilometers, - that’s like driving the distance from Kashmir to Kanyakumari 533 thousand times and still have a stop for chai! Kapil Kumar Pandey from Mumbai delivered an incredible 10,703 orders this year, while Kaleeswari M from Coimbatore led the female partners with 6,658 orders!
