Ola has halted its food delivery service on both the Ola app and the Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC) network. Notably, Moneycontrol first reported the change after the Ola Foods interface went inactive in recent days.
The feature is no longer functional for users, and restaurants are not taking new orders. Sources told Moneycontrol that the pause is part of a reassessment of the business, with the company reviewing whether Ola Foods fits into its long term plans. There is currently no indication if or when the service will restart. And, Ola has not issued a public announcement to clarify the status of Ola Foods.
Notably, the pause sits within a wider reset of business lines outside mobility and electric vehicles. Over the last two years Ola has scaled back or shut down several non-core experiments including Ola Cars and the quick commerce pilot Ola Dash. And apparently food delivery is the latest vertical affected by this portfolio review.
Importantly, this change also marks another shift in Ola’s ongoing attempts to establish a food delivery business. Earlier efforts included Ola Cafe in 2015, the FoodPanda acquisition in 2017 and a cloud kitchen model under Ola Foods in 2022. But none of these attempts sustained scale.
Context: Ola’s ONDC Food Bet
Ola adopted ONDC as the core of its latest food delivery push, instead of building its own restaurant marketplace. ONDC’s seller apps like Magicpin and uEngage had already onboarded restaurants, and logistics could be fulfilled either through network partners or Ola’s own fleet. As a result Ola operated purely as a buyer-side interface, without investing in onboarding, merchant acquisition or fulfilment infrastructure.
Steep pricing incentives drove early uptake for food delivery. For instance, users said Ola’s ONDC orders were significantly cheaper than Swiggy or Zomato, sometimes by 70% to 80%. Many users also noted that delivery fees were waived and restaurants said commissions were lower. These conditions helped Ola gain traction in Bengaluru, which continues to be ONDC’s most active food delivery market.
However the current pause signals a shift in internal priorities. Ola has already deprioritised Ola Dash as well as Ola Cars, and food delivery now sits under the same review. A check of ONDC’s consumer-facing directory shows that Ola still appears as a buyer app. However, the tile no longer offers a ‘Shop Now’ action.
Ola still appears as a buyer app on the ONDC website, but sans the ‘Shop Now’ button (Image source: MediaNama)
Effectively, the listing remains live but non-functional, and there is no explanation or timeline for resumption. This presentation reflects how ONDC surfaces service availability changes across the network.
How ONDC Assigns Responsibility
Understanding ONDC’s structure explains why Ola’s pause matters. ONDC is a protocol rather than a platform. It distributes responsibility across multiple…
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