New Delhi, December 23: Indians ordered on an average 95 biryanis per minute or 1.6 biryanis every second from Swiggy in 2019, the online food delivery platform said on Monday. In fact, biryani is the most common first order by new users on Swiggy, according to the company's fourth yearly 'StatEATistics' report on India's food ordering habits. Biryani has topped the list of most ordered dish for the third year in row.

However, the year also saw a rise in demand for 'khichdi'. Orders for khichdi on Swiggy grew 128 per cent this year. "While our patrons love their chicken biryanis, they prefer vegetarian toppings on their pizzas. Cheese, onion, paneer, extra cheese, mushroom, capsicum, corn, jalapenos and olives were among the most common toppings on pizza orders," Swiggy said, adding that pineapple was the least preferred topping, and were preferred by only 1.5 per cent of pizzas ordered. Paradise Biryani Makes a World Record! Restaurant Chain Enters 'The Limca Book of Records 2019' for Selling 70,44,289 Servings Of Delicious Flavoured Rice.

While people continue to indulge in gulab jamun and moong dal halwa, India has found another sweet favourite. Besides 17,69,399 gulab jamun orders and 2,00,301 orders for halwa in 2019, falooda is the newest entry to the top desserts on Swiggy with a whopping 11,94,732 orders this year. A special ice-cream filled Falooda was ordered over 6,000 times in Mumbai. Another favourite, 'choco pie and drink' was ordered 79,242 times in Chandigarh alone.

Other popular sweet treats include the usual suspects such as 'death by chocolate', 'tender coconut ice cream', 'tiramisu ice cream' and 'kesar halwa'. Overall, the most loved dishes in 2019 were chicken biryani, masala dosa, paneer butter masala, chicken fried rice, mutton biryani, chicken dum biryani, veg fried rice, veg biryani, tandoori chicken and dal makhani, said the report.

With overall orders for healthy options crossing 3.5 lakhs this year, the latest food trend that has taken the nation by storm is the Ketogenic diet which includes meat, fish, poultry and non-starchy vegetables. Swiggy noticed a 306 per cent increase in Keto-specific items ordered in 2019.

Highlighting some unusual requests, the report revealed that customers have used Swiggy Stores to get 'gaumutra' (cow urine) from an ayurvedic store in Gurgaon and rent receipts, among other things.

Swiggy's current delivery fleet of over 2.3 lakh active delivery partners has over 1,000 women delivery partners. Sudha from Kochi was the platform's top woman delivery partner for completing over 6,838 orders having joined Swiggy only 13 months ago, said the report. The findings are based on Swiggy's order analysis during January 2019 to October 2019 across over 500 cities that Swiggy is present in.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Dec 23, 2019 02:50 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).