Now you can grab cancelled Zomato orders nearby for discounted prices. How 'Food Rescue' works

Despite Zomato's strict no-refund policy on cancelled orders, a large number are still scrapped.

Zomato has unveiled a new initiative aimed at combating food wastage by offering cancelled orders at discounted prices through a feature called “Food Rescue.” This feature, announced by Zomato CEO Deepinder Goyal on Twitter, allows customers near a cancelled order’s original delivery route to claim the food at a significant discount, provided it’s still in its untampered, original packaging.

In his tweet, Goyal highlighted the scale of food waste tied to order cancellations, revealing that Zomato sees over 4,00,000 cancelled orders per month. Despite Zomato's strict no-refund policy on cancelled orders, a large number are still scrapped for various reasons, leading to unnecessary waste.

Goyal wrote, “The top concern for us, the restaurant industry, and even the customers who cancel these orders, is to somehow save the food from going to waste.”

With Food Rescue, customers within a 3km radius of a delivery partner carrying a cancelled order will see it appear on their app’s home screen, available to “rescue” at a reduced price. This listing will remain visible for only a few minutes to ensure the order’s freshness. Orders with temperature-sensitive items such as ice creams, smoothies, or items that could degrade in quality during transit will be excluded from this program.

To assure that the initiative supports those impacted financially by cancellations, Zomato has arranged that any payment from new customers claiming a rescued order will be divided between the original customer (if prepaid) and the restaurant, while Zomato itself takes no proceeds beyond necessary taxes.

We don't encourage order cancellation at Zomato, because it leads to a tremendous amount of food wastage.Inspite of stringent policies, and and a no-refund policy for cancellations, more than 4 lakh perfectly good orders get canceled on Zomato, for various reasons by customers. pic.twitter.com/fGFQQNgzGJ Deepinder Goyal (@deepigoyal) November 10, 2024

Addressing why the food isn’t simply donated, Goyal noted logistical and legal obstacles: “Most places where we can distribute them are away from urban centers, and distributing free food to the needy is fraught with liability challenges.” Thus, Zomato has limited the initiative to orders that were already en route.

The Food Rescue feature is now being gradually rolled out across the Zomato app, allowing users to refresh their home page and view any nearby cancelled orders that are available to claim.