Innovation

Foodmandu was founded by Mr. Manohar Adhikari, launched in November 2010 is the first company in Nepal that delivers food from more than 120 different restaurants in Kathmandu to your doorstep. In the initial phase, it was big challenge to convince restaurants to accept their business model and so they started business with just 10 restaurants. Since the online shopping culture was not established at that time, the other big challenge was to gain the trust of the customers that they will actually get the food delivered at their doorstep that they order online.

There are three ways of placing your order at Foodmandu. You can either use their app, their website or call them directly. Venture into any of the tools you want to use, look for Foodmandu and then, choose your order from the menus of different restaurants listed on the platform. You'll receive a verification call with the delivery time. Your food will be delivered via bikes with food contained in a bag that retains the heat for a considerable time. You can pay for your food when your is delivered.

Now Foodmandu entire team consists of 35 members in which they have dedicated 20 people for delivery and others on the customer service, marketing, and other departments. Now there are 120+ restaurants listed in Foodmandu. The number will keep increasing every year. They receive about 150 orders on an average per day.

Though they do not have immediate plans for expansion to other cities. However, they imagine to go to other cities also at right time.

Inspiration

Mr. Manohar Adhikari used to work in Software company as a software developer. He had to attend the job by 8:30 in the morning. He was allowed half an hour for lunch break in the noon which was barely enough to go to a restaurant, order food and then have a nice meal. And there was also limited restaurant around his workplace. So he had to eat food of only 2-3 restaurant which was nearby his office. From that time he thought, "A food delivery company would've been a blessing". Foodmandu is those exact thoughts of Adhikari taking shape.

It took three years of working in his own software company before the Foodmandu we know today, came into existence. Adhikari wanted to start an E-commerce company and he took a problem that he faced himself. On 11th of November 2010, Foodmandu started delivering food from 10 restaurants and 4 employees.

Overall impact

This innovation has helped a lot in the life of those people who have very busy schedule through out the day or who have limited lunch hour break. Foodmandu has also helped in the growth of more than 100 of restaurants which are associate with them. E-commerce business is very limited in Nepal and Foodmandu have given a bigger platform and more E-commerce opportunities. People's time and money in travelling or finding restaurant to have food has been saved and you can easily taste the food from the restaurant that are far from your surrounding.

Business benefit

For a person working nine to five in an office, the lunch-time and lunch experiences aren’t very good. People have meetings, appointments, and deadlines to meet today which means they are too busy to go out for lunch. With Foodmandu in town, people don't have to starve all day. Their lunch will be delivered wherever they are, which is the innovative move in the field of business where foodmandu is focusing on. This innovative move helps this business to build up the strong relation with customers. This innovative move will attract more and more customers because they feel more easy to order food from foodmandu with just one click rather than hopping here and there to find fine restaurant to eat. With the features of viewing and ordering the items of food online , these services have their specialities which make them different from other sites which helps foodmandu to provide better customer services and hence improves the brand image of the company.This innovation helps in expand the market place to national market. Another benefit of this innovation in business is that it decreases the cost of creating, processing, distributing, storing the product. It also allows reduced inventories and overhead.

Social and environmental benefit

People get out of their office at lunch break, but they might find the traffic jams on the way, which is annoying. Foodmandu enables individuals to sit at office or home and order food whenever they want and to do less travelling, resulting in less traffic on the roads and low air pollution. Since the business is E-commerce, it helps reducing in cost of the food so less affluent people can afford the food when they are hungry. It has enabled access to services and product to every corner of the city. Foodmandu needs employees to deliver the ordered food to the customers, so it is also creating a job opportunities to those who are unemployed. Foodmandu is able to attract customers from anywhere in the valley. Increase in customer base results in increase in order from Foodmandu. This generates greater revenues to Foodmandu and fosters expansion in national income. Expansion of national income and increase in the volume of production and services accelerate economic growth.

Interview

Manohar Adhikari, Founder & CEO