Bangalore: Fast food joints, hotels and restaurants across the city are seeing an upswing in home delivery orders as swine flu wary consumers avoid crowded eating joints.

The parcel counter at various restaurants and hotels are busy thanks to the increase in orders for food to be delivered at home, according to industry sources. "We have seen an uptake in home deliveries by 10 per cent", says Ritesh Dwivedy, co-founder of Hungryzone.com, a popular food website, that enables placing home delivery orders and booking tables at various eating joints among other services.

"Though the high-end segment and hotels have not seen a dip in booking tables, it is the medium range hotels and restaurants consumers that have begun opting for food from their popular restaurants to be delivered at home", he said.

A marketing official of a popular food chain said, "We have seen hometake aways increase in the last two weeks".

"In our apartment, many of us have decided to skip eating outside and now have begun ordering food to be delivered at home. While eating out at crowded places, the chances of catching the virus is more, hence we have opted for this safe option," says a resident of an upmarket area.

According to Ritesh, bulk of their business comes from home deliveries and now it has further gone up due to the flu scare. But 30 per cent of their business which comes from booking orders at high-end hotels had not been impacted, he said.

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