SAO PAULO, Jan. 29, 2020 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ -- Latin America's leading foodtech company, iFood, unveiled the details of its new Loop offering and its plan to expand the new program rapidly during 2020. Born as a project developed in iFood's AI Academy, an R&D lab opened last April, Loop introduces the delivery of healthy, fresh, affordable lunchtime food at a cost low enough there's no reason to shop and cook it at home, or even leave the office to buy "marmitas" (traditional Brazilian fare) from street vendors selling outside popular workplaces in Brazil.
iFood's logistics engine, powered by AI and machine learning, is core to the significant cost savings passed onto consumers. It provides the ability to offer quality lunchtime meals for about $3 using virtual kitchens during idle time (9am to midday) and batching orders so iFood delivery partners are able to take up to 18 orders at once with them on delivery runs. As a result, the cost of delivery decreased by 50 percent and order frequency jumped by more than 78 percent, based on data collected during a recent 28-city pilot.
"In Brazil, lunch is often considered the most important meal of the day," said Bruno Henriques, VP of Growth and AI at iFood. "With Loop, we deliver not only food that Brazilians eat every day, but we provide high quality food that's even healthier and well balanced at just the right time and at the right cost. We designed it so it's a 'no-brainer' for consumers to use Loop because it's so convenient, saves time and the food we deliver is better for you."
Ordering a Loop meal is very simple: the customer accesses the app, clicks on the iFood Loop category, chooses one dish at daily menu options, and schedules the delivery. For more convenience for consumers, orders can be scheduled from 2pm to the next day, or placed during the day up until 12:30pm. The app auto-updates users on the current availability of dishes in stock, and lets them choose one of the 30-minute delivery windows to receive meals (11:00am-11:30am, 11:50am-12:20pm, 12:40pm-1:10pm). The iFood Loop meals are delivered in a special, sealed package with information from the restaurant that produced the dish.
With more than 26.6 million orders per month and 131,000+ restaurants registered on the iFood platform in 912 cities, the company's leadership has fully embraced and invested in AI to continue achieving its aggressive growth goals and to drive more operations efficiencies.
"We've been laser-focused on logistics improvements using AI so our delivery partners can arrive at iFood providers' locations at the exact moment that food is ready, navigate through Brazil's crowded cities and diverse neighborhoods quickly with our own mapping system, and bring in more revenue," said Fabricio Bloisi, CEO and Founder of iFood and Movile. "Our goal is to serve more than 50 million Brazilians as rapidly as we can. We believe reducing food and delivery costs will boost our iFood Loop meals and popularity with customers quickly."
The iFood meals are prepared only by restaurants that strictly follow the requirements of quality and hygiene, which guarantees the high quality of dishes offered by Loop. During the recent pilot for iFood Loop, more than 650,000 meals per month were delivered in the program's first 28 cities. Many restaurant partners reported that the new offering has already doubled their business. These incremental orders are prepared mostly during less busy times when participating restaurant kitchens would otherwise remain idle. iFood also offers a specialized consultancy that guarantees healthy, fresh, affordable lunchtime food by the Loop restaurants.
"Our iFood customers order through the app, and iFood's logistics takes care of the management and distribution so we can simply focus on the production of great food," said Claudia Carrasco, an iFood Loop provider during a recent video interview. "The advance orders and planning lets us guarantee quality, keep costs low, and provide better customer service."
For more information about the new Loop program, please visit: http://www.ifood.com.br/loop. A video overview of iFood Loop (here) is now available for viewing or embedding into news stories.
About iFood
iFood, one of the world's most innovative foodtechs and a leader in online food delivery in Latin America, has 26.6 million monthly orders in Brazil. After eight years in the market, the company of Brazilian origin is also present in Mexico and Colombia. It works with partners and initiatives that bring together business intelligence and management solutions for more than 131 thousand restaurants registered in 912 cities throughout Brazil. iFood has key investors such as Movile - the global leader in mobile marketplaces - and Just Eat - one of the largest online ordering companies in the world.
Media Contacts
Brazil:
Manuela Cherobim
+55 11 99310-1519
[email protected]
United States:
Chris Knight
(415) 786-9226 c.
[email protected]
SOURCE iFood
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