Bengaluru, Feb. 21 -- Swiggy's decision to shut down its standalone 10-minute food-delivery app Snacc underscores the steep financial hurdles of ultra-fast food fulfillment, a format that remains difficult to scale even with simplified operations. Industry executives told Mint that the move highlights the persistent struggle to build a viable business model in a space where multiple platforms are racing to find a solution. "Speed alone does not make food delivery work. Creating demand density and keeping costs in control will decide the winners," said Satish Meena, analyst at market research firm Datum Intelligence. Rolled out in January 2025, Snacc was designed to simplify the 10-minute delivery model by limiting operational complexity. While it sourced supplies from third-party hotels, restaurants and catering vendors, the platform also operated its own kitchen infrastructure and partnered with beverage-machine providers to deliver easy-to-prepare items such as tea and coffee from dark stores. Snacc was available in Bengaluru, Gurugram and Noida. Through partnerships with select brands such as Blue Tokai Coffee Roasters and The Whole Truth Foods, Snacc offered a curated menu with a limited number of SKUs to enable faster preparation and dispatch. However, handling procurement and fulfillment end-to-end appears to have kept costs elevated, underscoring the model's constraints compared with a marketplace-led approach, where the platform acts purely as an intermediary connecting users with businesses that manage their own cooking and packing. "While the product-market fit was emerging, the broader economics made it challenging to scale. We want to concentrate all our energies on innovation that will drive stronger long-term potential," Food-tech platform, which also operates a quick-commerce arm, told employees on Thursday. Swiggy's rivals, however, continue to try out similar formats. Blinkit's in-house hot-food offering, Bistro, is seeing early signs of product-market fit, the firm said in its December-quarter letter to shareholders. "We are seeing early signs of product-market-fit, reflected in healthy throughput per outlet and early signs of a possible path to profitability," Eternal Limited's chief financial officer Akshant Goyal said. Industry executives said the coming months will reveal whether Bistro and other rival offerings such as Accel-backed Swish and Zepto Cafe can scale sustainably. "Hitting product-market fit is one thing, but scaling it without burning cash is where most instant food models will be tested," Datum's Meena noted. Swiggy didn't respond to Mint's queries. The biggest challenge for 10-minute food delivery is balancing speed with sustainable unit economics. Unlike restaurant aggregation, instant food formats require platforms to own demand planning and inventory within tight delivery radiuses. This drives up fixed costs through investments in dark stores, equipment and staffing, all while facing constant pressure to maintain average order values. However, margins at product level are typically higher as platforms procure wholesale supplies directly from vendors. "You're essentially trying to run a retail supply chain and a kitchen network at the same time, but with slightly higher margins," Meena said. Moreover, the model relies on micro-markets, typically large business parks where daily demand tends to be high. This makes scaling more tricky as demand patterns can vary significantly across cities and even neighbourhoods, according to an executive at a cloud kitchen operator in Bengaluru, who wished to remain anonymous. "Unless order density is consistently high within these micro-markets, the cost of fulfilling each order will outweigh margins," this person added....