Zomato goes colour blind with vegetarian fleet
By Our Special Correspondent
New Delhi, March 20: The food delivery aggregator Zomato has said that its fleet of the vegetarian food delivery boys will not be identifiable on the basis of colour segregation. Zomato has made changes to the plan to segregate the delivery boys on the basis of colour after facing a major social media outcry.
Deepinder Goyal of Zomato in a post on the social media platform X, formerly Twitter, said: “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.” He said that “all our riders — both our regular fleet, and our fleet for vegetarians, will wear the colour red”.
He underlined that the move will ensure that “the fleet meant for vegetarian orders will not be identifiable on the ground”. Yet, he added that the app will show that “your veg orders will be served by the veg only fleet”.
He also state that the decision “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”. He also noted that the measure has been taken to ensure “rider’s physical safety which 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.”
Telangana Gig Workers Association, however, came down heavily on Zomato, as it said in a media statement that “Our Q to @deepigoyal on Zomato’s ‘Pure Veg Fleet’ announcement: Will Zomato now also filter out delivery workers who r vegetarian only to service this fleet? Will @zomato in the future also take customer feedback about who can deliver their food and who cannot?”
Senior journalist Mrinal Pande reacted angrily to the move of Zomato, as she said in a post on X: “Nonsense Mr Goyal. They are only 19% of the total population. It is only because we hv such a large population that numerically they appear so large. Remember 81% are non-vegetarians. Also, many vegetarian families may hv several non-vegetarian members. I am switching to Swiggy.”
Goyal, however, further said in his statement that “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.”
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