MANILA, PHILIPPINES — Before Covid-19 hit the world, Filipino consumers used GrabFood mainly for their once-in-a-while treats to satiate their cravings — boba tea, pizza, Korean chicken, and fast food joints were some of the most popular choices. But with the lockdown restrictions implemented over the height of the pandemic, people’s delivery behaviors and preferences changed. Tired of cooking three square meals a day at home, consumers began seeking more filling food that they normally wouldn’t order such as bulalo, pancit, and other core foods. This opened up doors for smaller food joints to enter the market and create a new wave of food choices on the GrabFood platform. “We realized that a lot of people who were used to the platform before the pandemic did not know that there were new smaller merchants there,” explained Grab Philippines Senior Director for Deliveries Anton Bautista. “How can we then elevate these merchants on our platform in a way that's interesting while also allowing consumers to find them? We thought of ways on how to help these smaller merchants get an equal footing with larger, more established brands in the Philippines, or at least give them the chance to have more visibility in the market,” he explained. Anton Bautista, Grab Philippines Senior Director for Deliveries The customers’ new tastes meet a new wave of merchants These changes in customers’ consumption behavior and online food delivery preferences have sparked new, albeit smaller, local eateries to join the GrabFood platform. “When we launched in 2022, we saw there was about a 30% increase in sales for a lot of the merchants who were participating in the Indie Eats program. We were very happy that it was successful in driving a lot of sales growth for them,” Anton shared. For the platform’s second year in 2023, he explained that Indie Eats’ goal is to establish the smaller merchants’ image from simply being commercial to a more prestige profile. Hence, the campaign “Sarap na lumalaban,” with the main concept depicting how these smaller vendors are at par with larger chains and brands. “Can we establish them as brands that people would then remember and order from again?” Anton ruminated. Since this new wave of food places has come to shore, Anton has shared stories of customers being surprised at the number of choices they now have at their fingertips: “I've discovered this really interesting halo-halo place; there’s this really interesting empanada place on Indie Eats; and it's actually very close to me,” were some of the most common feedback that they have received through the program. Anton divulged, “We're starting to see more people try new merchants. There were two studies done where it was found that 9 out of 10 people supposedly discovered numerous merchants they’ve never visited before through our platform during the pandemic.” While the Indie Eats program is still in its early stages of development and only currently running on its second year this 2023, Anton and the GrabFood team feel that the program has the potential to grow bigger. The inception of Indie Eats, and how brands are transformed for the program When Indie Eats was first launched, Anton and his team only wanted to see whether or not they can use the GrabFood platform to drive demand into the fresh league of small restaurants. But what they’ve noticed is that even after they’ve helped boost the sales of these new players, customers didn’t really remember them after the first order. As a consequence, customers tend to not come back, and almost never stay as loyal patrons. “They only tried these merchants because they were displayed on the app,” he conveyed. To boost the appearance of these sellers on the app and show that they can compete against bigger food brands, GrabFood partnered with professional photographer Jilson Tiu to take more appealing photos of the smaller merchants’ menu items. “We want to elevate them and let them be well-known by everybody,” Anton explained. How merchants are chosen, and what rewards await them for their success Like any program that’s only just starting out, GrabFood’s Indie Eats utilizes a careful selection and analysis of the stores they feature. “We do it in waves,” Anton started off. “We pull around a few hundred interesting merchants and divide them into sets based on the criteria that we have. Then the team would review some of the more popular ones that customers order from, and judge them based on the overall quality of the food. We don't taste every merchant’s food, but we do try a few of the ones inside sets. And from there, we launch them to the public.” He explained that there are a few important rules that the GrabFood team uses to identify the restaurants that could qualify to participate in the Indie Eats program: “We have to make sure that the merchant has been running for at least six months; they need to have had reviews from people who ordered from them for the past two months; and we also review their quality framework before they can be part of the campaign.” Just getting into the program itself might seem like a daunting challenge to new vendors, but the reward waiting for them would be a tumultuous achievement. “If they perform well, then we ‘graduate’ them, which means they're no longer considered Indie Eats merchants, but rather bigger sellers already from that standpoint. Once they’ve graduated, they can hold their own,” Anton emphasized. A plateful of insights served by the Indie Eats program “I think the biggest learning that we gained is that newer food joints just need to get people to try,” Anton pressed. “Normally, to get people to try your food, you need to stand out with one particular dish that people should know you for. We've been telling merchants, especially the smaller set, ‘Don't try to be good at everything at the beginning. You just need to be really good at one thing that people will go to you for. Then use that to push your brand awareness and then scale from there.’” Anton said that they’ve seen sellers trying to do a “more is better” tactic, thinking that if they had more options to offer to customers, the likelier they’ll have people ordering from them. “But what we’ve realized is that if you have too many things to offer but they’re all of average quality, they still won’t order from you again,” he interpreted. Another lesson they picked up is that when people crave a certain kind of food, it’s really the only thing they want to order. This behavior that customers practice in online food delivery is the opposite of what you’d expect in food courts. Anton illustrated that in food courts, the food stalls and vendors have the mindset of satisfying everyone’s cravings, so they need to offer a little bit of everything; whereas with online delivery, the customers are more intentional with what they actually want to eat and order. How Metro Manila’s small food places and the neighboring provinces’ local heroes are helping consumers discover new food As of now, the Indie Eats program is only available here in Metro Manila. But Anton revealed that they have a similar program running outside the Metro, called Local Heroes. He explained that the biggest difference between Indie Eats and Local Heroes is the mindset of the consumers belonging in those areas. He shared that in Metro Manila, customers don’t necessarily think of the smaller restaurants as “heroes” since the market has gotten bigger and denser over the course of the pandemic — options are available left and right for them to choose from. Meanwhile, outside the Metro, there are fewer smaller merchants that have popped up during the pandemic; therefore, the ones that have taken the risk to put up a new small business and cater to the people are considered as local heroes by the customers in those areas. Anton clarified that although the two campaigns are similar, they are branded differently. “Although, we are exploring the idea of merging the two concepts next year as we scale Indie Eats further,” he added. Anton’s personal goals and GrabFood’s next milestones for Indie Eats Indie Eats has seen one success after another since its launch last year. The platform is showing great potential to aid smaller merchants and help expand the food industry online. While it’s still in its early stages, Anton has a lot of goals he wants the program to achieve — both personally and as part of the GrabFood team. “My personal goal is I want to do a collaboration between a popular Filipino chef and the Indie Eats merchants,” he started. “We will do a full, sit-down fine dining menu. Each course will be chosen by an Indie Eats merchant, then the Filipino chef will refine it.” His goal, ultimately, is to make people realize that the merchants’ foods available online can also be considered or presented in a fine-dining display or as an upscale meal. “It just requires a little bit of preparation in order to do something like that,” Anton added. Sharing the GrabFood team’s goals, Anton divulged that they want to grow the proportion of sales that come from Indie Eats merchants compared to other bigger players in the food industry. “We want to make sure that more people and more of these merchants benefit from the platform, moving forward.” What to watch out for next on GrabFood Anton and his team at GrabFood are prepared to give customers what they want on the platform, and more. With Indie Eats being a huge hit among people and having garnered valuable data on consumers for the brains behind the program, the next few months will be filled with exciting offers on the platform. In September, Anton shared that they will be rolling out a program on GrabFood called Fan Favorites. “We wanted to celebrate the Filipinos’ favorite dishes,” Anton illustrated on what the concept for Fan Favorites will be. In the past few years, the Fan Favorites program was utilized by the team to simply ask, “What’s your favorite brand?” This year, however, they’re improving it to ask, “What are the favorite dishes of the people?” Anton explained that the concept is akin to musical streaming charts where the list of favorites is determined by the public. “It will be driven by the number of orders that merchants are able to connect for particular dishes. Then, we're going to run that campaign across 15 categories to see which brand is actually the best. For example, it can determine who has the best-selling fried chicken in the Philippines,” he enthused. He went on to explain that the Fan Favorites campaign will much likely be the opening salvo for the holiday season. It could help raise awareness to consumers of the merchants on the platform that are considered the public’s choices of brands, or the food that people love to eat. And when Christmas rolls along, Anton shared that they already have a separate campaign prepared for the season. He teased, “Keep posted on it! It will be quite an interesting holiday campaign which will celebrate the Christmas spirit.” Learn more about GrabFood’s Indie Eats and other campaigns at https://food.grab.com/ph/en/
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