A day after announcing the launch of a “pure veg” fleet for customers who have pure vegetarian dietary preferences, Zomato CEO Deepinder Goyal said that the on-ground segregation of riders won’t be happening.
In a post on X that he shared on March 20, Goyal said that all Zomato riders will be wearing the colour red, irrespective of which order they are delivering. Earlier, it was informed that the "pure veg" fleet will be wearing green while delivering orders.
Citing valuable feedback from the customers, Goyal wrote, "While we are going to continue to have a fleet for vegetarians, we have decided to remove the on-ground segregation of this fleet on the ground using the colour green. All our riders — both our regular fleet, and our fleet for vegetarians, will wear the colour red."
Customers will be able to identify their "pure veg" fleet through the app only. "This will ensure that our red uniform delivery partners are not incorrectly associated with non-veg food, and blocked by any RWAs or societies during any special days... our rider’s physical safety is of paramount importance to us."
"We now realise that even some of our customers could get into trouble with their landlords, and that would not be a nice if that happened because of us," he added.
Concluding his post, the CEO thanked everyone for talking about it last night and providing feedback about the brand new move. "You made us understand the unintended consequences of this rollout. All the love, and all the brickbats were all so useful - and helped us get to this optimal point. We are always listening, without unnecessary ego, or pride. We look forward to continue serving you."
On Monday, hours after announcing the “pure veg” fleet and mode, Goyal highlighted the need behind separating the fleet for vegetarian and non-vegetarian orders. “Because despite everyone's best efforts, sometimes the food spills into the delivery boxes. In those cases, the smell of the previous order travels to the next order, and may lead to the next order smelling of the previous order. For this reason, we had to separate the fleet for veg orders,” he wrote.
He also underlined that the delivery agent’s participation in the “pure veg” fleet will not discriminate against the rider’s dietary preferences. “There’s an opinion that some societies and RWAs will now not let our regular fleet in. We will stay alert for any such cases and work with these RWAs to not let this happen. We understand our social responsibility due to this change, and we will not back down from solving it when the need arises.”
Meanwhile, the "pure veg" fleet and "pure veg" mode were met with divided reactions from social media users. While some people labelled it as an "idiotic move" others called it "smart".
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