In a March 2025 Substack essay, Harshit Rakheja argues that NRAI's complaint about Blinkit's Bistro and Swiggy's Snacc misreads the market: cheaper ordering options already exist, and the platforms gain nothing by hurting their own restaurant partners. Entrackr's reporting complicates this, citing a Competition Commission of India finding that both platforms broke competition law through exclusivity deals.
What set off the argument
Harshit Rakheja's essay appeared on Substack in March 2025, soon after the restaurant industry body NRAI (National Restaurant Association of India) took another complaint to the Competition Commission of India (CCI). This time the association's charge was that Zomato and Swiggy were exploiting their dominance: taking data from restaurant partners and using it to build quick-commerce food brands of their own.
The two brands at the centre of it are Blinkit's Bistro and Swiggy's Snacc. Each has a standalone app, promises delivery in roughly 10 minutes and sells cooked food, so each goes head to head with restaurants listed on the parent company's main marketplace.
The essay's answer to the data-misuse claim
NRAI's concern is that the platforms could read their order data, spot which dishes sell, and steer that demand towards brands they own. Rakheja answers with incentives. A platform expands only as the restaurants on it win more orders and more repeat customers, so draining business away from those partners would hurt the platforms' own growth. In his reading, it would make little sense for a company that earns from restaurants to build Snacc simply to undercut them.
Why the Amazon comparison does not fit, according to Rakheja
NRAI's framing invites a comparison with Amazon, which faced accusations that it mined seller data to launch in-house labels and push small sellers aside. Rakheja thinks the parallel breaks down. A private label can stand out in a category like furniture, where design and branding create a genuine difference. Samosas, Maggi and rajma chawal are commodities, and what Bistro and Snacc offer is fast delivery rather than a different dish.
Neither company, the essay points out, has said the food at its ten-minute cafés differs from what is already on sale. What they are selling is convenience, not a copy of someone else's menu.
Who is making the complaint
Rakheja also looks hard at the messenger. The public voice of NRAI's case is Sagar Daryani, newly elected as the association's president, who co-founded the quick-service chain Wow! Momo and is its CEO. A business built on momos and similar snacks is exactly the kind that Bistro, Snacc and Zepto Café would squeeze hardest by delivering the same foods in ten minutes. The essay sees NRAI's position as an established player reaching for a regulatory lever to protect its share, rather than a neutral voice for the industry.
The essay is blunt about trade bodies in general. Rakheja compares lobbies in India to the boy who cried wolf, saying that whatever is new and good for customers gets branded anti-competitive by them.
Rakheja's test for a monopoly
The essay offers one test: does a company make it harder for new rivals to appear, typically by lobbying to shield incumbents? By that measure, Rakheja says, Zomato and Swiggy do not behave like monopolies, because cheaper routes already exist and are growing:
- Thrive Now and DotPe let restaurants set up their own ordering storefronts online and use outside delivery fleets. The essay says both charge less than the 15–25% per order taken by the two majors.
- Thrive Now has also launched a restaurant discovery catalogue of its own, putting it in direct competition with the big two.
- ONDC (Open Network for Digital Commerce) is the government-backed attempt at the same challenge.
Restaurants have not left Zomato and Swiggy in large numbers despite these options. To Rakheja, the lack of an exodus shows how highly owners rate the discovery the two platforms bring, not a shortage of alternatives.
Where the regulator has already disagreed
Saying there is no real monopoly does not answer NRAI's narrower charge about data, and the platforms have not won every round. Entrackr, covering the same Bistro and Snacc dispute, pointed to a November 2024 Reuters report: a CCI investigation had found that Zomato and Swiggy broke competition law by favouring selected restaurants through exclusivity arrangements.
That finding concerns a different practice from private labels, but it shows the regulator has not dismissed restaurant complaints out of hand. A separate NRAI petition under Section 3(1), covering the private-label question itself, has not yet been decided. The essay's broad argument and the regulator's narrower finding therefore sit side by side: the monopoly label may overstate the problem, while the CCI has already found in restaurants' favour on a related complaint.
What this means for your restaurant
- Treat the two arguments separately. Whether Zomato and Swiggy are a monopoly is one question; whether a platform favours certain restaurants or misuses partner data is another, and on exclusivity a CCI investigation has already found against them.
- If your menu relies on commodity items such as samosas, Maggi or rajma chawal, expect ten-minute apps like Bistro, Snacc and Zepto Café to compete with you on delivery speed rather than on the dish.
- Compare costs: the essay puts the two majors at 15–25% per order and says Thrive Now and DotPe charge less for your own storefront with third-party delivery.
- Weigh any move away against the discovery Zomato and Swiggy bring, which the essay sees as the reason restaurants have stayed despite cheaper options.
Sources
- The Boy Who Cried 'Monopoly': Why NRAI's Fight Against Zomato & Swiggy Rings Hollow — Substack (Harshit Rakheja)
This article summarises the reporting and guides listed above; the figures belong to those sources and are attributed in the text. Check anything that affects your business against your own platform agreements, payout statements and advisers.