New Delhi, Mar 21 (IANS): In a global first, food delivery platform Zomato on Monday announced to deliver food under 10 minutes, starting with Gurugram.

Zomato Founder and CEO Deepinder Goyal said that the food delivery platform will not pressure its delivery partners to ensure a delivery in 10 minutes.

"Time optimisation does not happen on the road, and does not put any lives at risk," Goyal said in a statement.

"Nobody in the world has so far delivered hot and fresh food in under 10 minutes at scale, and we were eager to be the first to create this category, globally," he added.

Zomato recently acquired Blinkit (earlier Grofers) that delivers groceries in 15-20 minutes.

Zomato said that with "accessibility (reduction of delivery time from 30 minutes average to under 10 minutes), and quality (with influence over the supply chain, we will be able to ensure highest grade ingredients and hygiene practices across the supply chain".

The company has narrowed down to eight principles to build Zomato Instant.

These are: Almost as affordable as home-cooked food, Highest quality of fresh food, World class hygiene practices, Minimal use of plastic packaging, Convenient packaging for quick/easy consumption, Traceable supply chain, Delivery partner safety, and Deep collaboration with restaurant partners.

"The fulfilment of our quick delivery promise relies on a dense finishing stations' network, which is located in close proximity to high-demand customer neighbourhoods," said Goyal.

Sophisticated dish-level demand prediction algorithms, and future-ready in-station robotics are employed to ensure that your food is sterile, fresh and hot at the time it is picked by the delivery partner, he added.