Some restaurants on Swiggy have accused the food delivery giant of signing them up on its standalone budget food app Toing without their approval, and tweaking menu prices without their knowledge. Multiple restaurant owners as well as consultants handling food chains across Delhi, Mumbai and Pune say these alleged practices make their menu prices vary across delivery apps and end up hurting margins. And there’s also no option for them to revise prices or quit just the new app.
The complaints come amid intensifying competition in food delivery with new entrants such as Rapido, while Swiggy seeks to expand Toing’s footprint by targeting value-conscious customers with meals typically starting ₹49 and even going down to ₹9 at times.
It was first launched in Pune in the latter half of 2025, and expanded to Delhi-National Capital Region (NCR) in February and to Mumbai in March. Toing is now live across multiple cities, including Pune, Agra, Vadodara, Guwahati, Nashik and Nagpur.
“I personally manage several restaurants where Swiggy has submitted letters of undertaking (LOUs), but we have not signed them. Despite that, the outlets are already live on the platform,” said a food industry consultant from Delhi National Capital Region (NCR), who manages aggregator partnerships for multiple restaurants.
According to industry insiders, restaurants in cities such as Delhi NCR, Mumbai, Chennai and Pune who earn up to ₹15 lakh per month are the ones most affected.
Unlike Swiggy’s main platform, where restaurant partners can manually log into the dashboard and adjust menu prices themselves, Toing currently does not offer merchants a dedicated interface for price management. A restaurateur, who sought to revise prices on Toing, said he was informed by Swiggy’s point of contact (PoC) that the change could not be made immediately.
“The PoC just told me that the price change will be done the next day. If a PoC is available, it can be done today. Otherwise, it may continue for five days,” said a restaurant owner from Delhi NCR.
In another instance, a restaurant owner from Mumbai alleged that an order originally worth ₹688 was sold on Toing after certain menu items were priced at just ₹9 each without the restaurant’s knowledge or approval. According to the owner, discounts amounting to ₹509.44 were applied to the order, reducing the final bill value to ₹187.49. The restaurateur claimed that neither the pricing nor the discount structure had been discussed with or approved by the outlet.
Restaurant operators said there is currently no independent mechanism to disable Toing operations. “If a merchant wishes to temporarily suspend orders on Toing because of pricing or operational concerns, the only available option is to switch off their Swiggy listing entirely, which directly affects their primary food delivery business,” said another restaurant owner from Pune.
Swiggy did not immediately respond to Mint‘s queries on problems flagged by restaurants.
The issue has not yet been formally communicated to the National Restaurant Association of India (NRAI). “We, however, remain in regular dialogue with food delivery platforms and, if such concerns are brought to our attention, we will engage with all stakeholders to ensure a fair and transparent resolution,” said Sagar Daryani, president of the association and co-founder and chief executive of restaurant chain Wow! Momo.
Restaurants divided on Toing
On the other hand, some restaurants cheer the traction they are seeing through Toing.
A restaurant owner from Delhi NCR said the new app has emerged as a significant source of business for his outlet. “Nearly 70% of my orders are now coming from Toing, and the service has helped us a lot.”
The restaurant owner also said he has not faced any issues in pricing or backend communication. “I don’t have any issues with pricing, and the point of contact is also very supportive. If restaurant owners were allowed to make arbitrary pricing changes, it could become difficult because Toing operates on a particular pricing model and trend,” he said.
A key differentiator between Swiggy and Toing is pricing. Toing targets students and office-goers with food items priced as low as ₹9 and ₹49. Unlike the main Swiggy app, Toing does not charge for delivery or packaging. It also aims to match or beat restaurant table-menu prices.
Competition heats up
The allegations surrounding Swiggy’s Toing come against the backdrop of broader concerns that restaurant owners have periodically raised regarding their relationship with food delivery platforms.
“As competition for visibility on these apps increases, restaurants feel pressured to spend more on advertisements and discounts,” said Satish Meena, founder, of Daatum Intelligence. a Gurugram-based consumer insights firm. “However, restaurants then often question whether the returns justify the costs. Given the limited margins in the restaurant business, sustaining high spending on ads, discounts and platform fees becomes difficult over time.”
In the fourth quarter of FY26, Swiggy reported a 45% year-on-year increase in consolidated revenue to ₹6,383 crore, while net losses narrowed to ₹800 crore from ₹1,081 crore a year earlier.
In its shareholders’ letter for the quarter, Swiggy said it continues to invest in new initiatives such as Toing, EatRight, and Bolt to support affordability and faster deliveries. “We are currently in an experimentation phase (for Toing) and will share more details as we endeavour to find the product market fit for this offering,” it said.
Top rival Zomato does not appear to be directly targeting this segment. In fact, in his letter to shareholders in October, founder Deepinder Goyal had said, “It appears that these apps are specifically targeting budget-conscious customers. At our end, we believe that the Zomato app should be able to solve for these use cases without needing a new app.”
(Sowmya R contributed to this story)