NEW DELHI: Flipkart is taking its quick-commerce business into a new market: gourmet grocery.
Flipkart Minutes has started offering premium and speciality food products and has also launched Pykd, its own brand for the category. The move comes at a time when quick-commerce companies are looking beyond milk, bread and everyday groceries to get customers to spend more on each order.
Flipkart Minutes’ gourmet range includes cheese, coffee, wood-pressed oils and ghee, ramen and noodles, chocolates, kombucha and boba. Pykd has started with products such as namkeen and chips. Flipkart also plans to add more premium brands to the platform.
The move puts Flipkart Minutes into a growing battle. Blinkit already has a Gourmet section, while Zepto is preparing its Select premium grocery service. FirstClub has also built its business around premium groceries, while Swiggy Instamart is developing its own brand, Noice.
Quick Commerce Is Getting Bigger
The numbers show why companies are making this push.
According to Bain & Company, India’s quick-commerce market reached around $10 billion-$11 billion in 2025. The market is expected to reach $65 billion-$70 billion by 2030.
Quick commerce now accounts for about 1.5% of India’s total grocery market, while its share in major metro cities has reached around 6%-7%.
But most of the business is still based on everyday needs. Bain estimates that household essentials make up around 85%-90% of quick-commerce sales.
That leaves a large opportunity for companies to sell more products beyond regular grocery items.
Flipkart Minutes Is Already Expanding Fast
Flipkart Minutes is not entering the gourmet market from a small base.
In June, Flipkart said Minutes had crossed 1,000 micro-fulfilment centres across more than 130 cities and 8,000 pincodes. The company said orders had grown five times compared with the previous year.
It also said more than 40% of its customers are from Gen Z, showing that younger consumers are using the platform for more than just emergency grocery purchases.
There are signs that customers are already spending more across categories. Flipkart said the average value of fruits and vegetable orders on Minutes increased 30%, while repeat purchases rose by more than 20%.
The company has also expanded Minutes beyond grocery into categories such as electronics, beauty, wellness and lifestyle products.
Why Gourmet Grocery Matters
The reason behind the move is fairly simple.
A customer ordering milk or vegetables may spend only a few hundred rupees. But a basket containing speciality coffee, imported cheese, chocolates or premium oils can be worth much more.
Industry estimates suggest a typical quick-commerce order is currently around ₹500-₹700. Premium households can generate orders worth roughly ₹1,500-₹2,000 or more, according to a recent industry analysis.
That gives companies a reason to target customers who are willing to spend more, without depending only on getting more orders.
For a quick-commerce platform, this matters because the delivery cost does not increase in the same way when a customer adds more products to an order.
Pykd Gives Flipkart Its Own Brand
Pykd is another important part of the strategy.
Instead of selling only products made by other companies, Flipkart can now sell products under a brand it owns. This gives it greater control over pricing, product selection and sourcing.
It also gives Flipkart a way to offer products that are different from what customers find on competing apps.
Swiggy is following a similar approach with Noice on Instamart.
The private-label push comes as quick-commerce companies focus more on making their businesses financially stronger. Swiggy said this week that it expects Instamart’s gross order value to rise four to five times, from ₹28,000 crore in FY26 to ₹1.5 lakh crore by FY31.
The Next Quick-Commerce Battle
The quick-commerce race is no longer only about who can deliver in 10 minutes.
Companies are now fighting for a bigger share of the customer’s monthly spending.
For Flipkart Minutes, gourmet grocery is one more way to do that. If customers begin using quick-commerce apps not only for last-minute groceries but also for premium food and speciality products, the size of each order could rise significantly.
That could make gourmet grocery an important part of the next phase of India’s quick-commerce growth.
For now, the battle is just getting started. But with Flipkart Minutes, Blinkit, Zepto, Swiggy Instamart and specialist players all moving into premium food, the country’s fastest-growing retail segment is clearly looking for its next big source of growth.
