While many took to cooking and even baking at home amid Covid-19 pandemic, a new report on Friday revealed that Indians made 5.5 lakh (550,000) orders for chicken biryani during the nationwide lockdown. Food delivery platform Swiggy revealed that nearly 323 million kg of onions and 56 million kg of bananas delivered through its grocery.

According to the report, on an average, 65,000 meal orders were placed by 8 p.m. each day to make sure food arrives in time for dinner.

Around 1,29,000 choco lava cake orders were placed to satiate those sweet cravings in the past few months of the lockdown period. This was followed by orders for gulab jamun and chic butterscotch mousse cake, the report said.

Swiggy also delivered nearly 1,20,000 birthday cakes during the lockdown.

The data showed that the food delivery platform delivered over 73,000 bottles of sanitizers and hand wash along with 47,000 face masks amid the Covid-19 pandemic.

"As far as food is concerned when people weren't whipping up dalgonas coffee or baking banana bread, they found comfort in their biryanis, which continued to rule the roost with nearly 5.5 lakh orders," the company said in a statement.

According to the report, a large set of consumers resorted to the evergreen college hack of living on instant noodles. Around 3,50,000 packets of this ideal easy to cook meal were ordered during the lockdown.

Also, Swiggy's 'Hope, Not Hunger' initiative raised over Rs 10 crore, which helped serve 30 lakh (3 million) meals to people in need during the lockdown.
(IANS)