Deepinder Goyal on Tuesday announced the launch of a new service especially for Zomato's vegetarian customers. The founder and CEO of the food delivery company introduced a "pure veg" mode using which customers can order food from restaurants that prepare only vegetarian food and a "pure veg" fleet to deliver those orders.
"India has the largest percentage of vegetarians in the world, and one of the most important feedback we’ve gotten from them is that they are very particular about how their food is cooked, and how their food is handled," Goyal wrote on X. "To solve for their dietary preferences, we are today, launching a 'Pure Veg Mode' along with a 'Pure Veg Fleet' on Zomato, for customers who have a 100 percent vegetarian dietary preference."
He added that the "Pure Veg Mode" would consist of a curation of restaurants that serve only pure vegetarian food. "Our dedicated Pure Veg Fleet will only serve orders from these pure veg restaurants. This means that a non-veg meal, or even a veg meal served by a non-veg restaurant will never go inside the green delivery box meant for our Pure Veg Fleet," Deepinder Goyal said, adding that the new service doesn’t serve or alienate any religious, or political preference.
The development, however, received mixed responses from social media users with one section claiming that it would further segregate people based on their eating preferences and the other calling it a smart business move.
"How about a separate fleet for those vegetarians who don't have onion and garlic and don't want that mixed with their veg food? How about separate fleets for jhatka and halal non-veg? What an idiotic move. Some societies will stop nonveg deliveries and you're only enabling them," wrote Nikhil Pahwa (@nixxin), founder of Medianama.
"Will this 'fleet' exclude delivery personnel based on their personal dietary choices? That’s the hidden agenda, I fear," commented Tamil Nadu MP Karti P Chidambaram.
"Are your riders in the "poor veg fleet" all "poor veg" themselves? If not will you bring in additional parameters to further discriminate your riders on patrons? What problems does this fleet address if not for optics and riding high on the Hindutva wave?" another X user (@kothubarotta) asked Goyal. "There is already a filter option for pure veg on the app. This only serves as fringe to waylay and harass any red bag rider for furthers casteism."
The Zomato boss, however, also found support in several users.
"I ain't a huge supporter of pure veg thing, but consumer demands are to be met and he who captures it grows big. Simple business. Demand-supply ratio. Amit Jain had accepted this on Shark Tank India," said Shreyas S (@iamshreyas43).
X user Kshitij Sharma (@Observers_India) wrote, "You addressed the biggest concern of vegetarians. Hope to see your business rising by 20-30 percent more when you tap this pure veg market."
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