Zomato CEO ‘will roll back if…’ amid ‘vegan model’ service controversy

Mr. Goyal elaborated on the company’s reasons for launching a “vegan model” service.

New Delhi:

Zomato CEO Deepinder Goyal, who faced backlash from some online after launching a “vegan model” service, said on Tuesday that the food delivery platform would “immediately withdraw” if there is a negative social impact.

In a late-night long post on X, Mr Goyal also sought to allay fears that Zomato’s regular fleet might be banned by certain associations and RWAs.

“There is a view that some societies and RWAs will not let our regular fleet in now. We will remain alert to any such situation and work with these RWAs to prevent this from happening.

“We understand the social responsibility that comes with this change and we will not back down from addressing this issue if needed,” he said.

“Please note that this vegan model or vegan fleet does not serve or alienate any religious or political preferences,” he clarified.

Mr. Goyal elaborated on the company’s reasons for launching a “vegan model” service.

“But why do we need to separate the fleet? Because despite everyone’s best efforts, sometimes food spills into the delivery boxes. In this case, the smell from the previous order can spread to the next, and may cause the next order to have a bad smell.” The Zomato CEO said: “Our orders are different from the previous orders. Therefore, we have to separate the fleet to handle the vegetable orders.”

He stressed that the new service strictly caters to dietary preferences and regardless of a person’s religion or caste, participation of delivery partners in the new fleet will not be decided based on their dietary preferences.

“I would like to reiterate that this feature strictly serves dietary preferences. I know there are many customers who will never order from restaurants that serve meat, regardless of their religion/caste,” Mr. Goyal said.

He ended the post by promising that Zomato would remove the vegan model if there was a significant negative social impact.

“I pledge that if we see any significant negative social impact from this change, we will immediately reverse it,” Mr Goyal said.

I have received an overwhelmingly positive response from many people to this launch. Many young people who eat non-vegetarian food comment that “now my parents can also use zomato”.

I want to reiterate that this feature strictly serves dietary preferences. And I know…

— Deepinder Goyal (@deepigoyal) March 19, 2024

Zomato co-founders on Tuesday announced the launch of a “vegan mode” service to cater to customers with vegan dietary preferences.

Citing feedback from vegetarian customers as the reason for the launch, Mr Goyal said the online food delivery platform has also launched a ‘vegan fleet’ in India for customers who follow a 100 per cent vegetarian diet.

“India has the highest proportion of vegetarians in the world, and one of the most important pieces of feedback we get from them is that they are very picky about how their food is cooked and how it is handled,” Mr Goyal said in the report. A series of posts on X.

“To address (sic) their dietary preferences, we are today launching ‘Vegan Mode’ as well as ‘Vegan Fleet’ on Zomato to cater to customers with 100 per cent vegetarian dietary preferences,” he said.

For the “vegan model”, he said, the company would invite some restaurants that specialize in vegetarian options and exclude any establishments that serve non-vegetarian food.

He said the vegetable-only fleet will use green delivery boxes instead of the standard red boxes.

Goyal said these delivery boys will exclusively deliver orders from vegan restaurants and will not handle any non-vegetarian meals.

Also, they will not carry green delivery boxes into non-vegetarian restaurants.

“Our dedicated vegan fleet will only serve orders from these vegan restaurants. This means that non-vegan meals, or even vegetarian meals from non-vegan restaurants, will never make it into the green delivery boxes of our vegan fleet,” he explain.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)