Zomato Pure Veg: CEO explains need for fleet after backlash, no change in uniform colour

After facing some caustic backlash online from a section of people over the launch of the “Pure Veg Mode” service, Zomato CEO Deepinder Goyal has said the food delivery platform will “roll it back in a heartbeat” in case of any negative social repercussions.

Also, he updated on Wednesday (March 20) morning that the Pure Veg Fleet will also wear the same red uniform as the regular fleet to prevent any discrimination.

“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.

This means that the fleet meant for vegetarian orders will not be identifiable on the ground (but will show on the app that your veg orders will be served by the veg only fleet),” he posted on X.

“Nothing religious or political about it”

Before that, in a long late-night post on X on Tuesday (March 19), Goyal also sought to allay concerns that Zomato’s regular fleet may be barred by some residential societies and resident welfare associations (RWAs).

“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,” he said.

“Please note that this Pure Veg Mode, or the Pure Veg Fleet doesn’t serve or alienate any religious, or political preference,” he clarified.

Backlash on X

Goyal’s elaborate explanation came after the Zomato co-founder faced some sarcastic remarks from a section of people upon his announcement of the launch of a “Pure Veg Mode” service to cater to customers who have a pure vegetarian dietary preference.

Lyricist-writer-director-comedian Varun Grover minced no words in his response to Goyal’s post. “Can you please ensure that the delivery partners & their families are also pure veg- otherwise they may just be serving khichdi after eating chicken for lunch with the same hands. Also what about the veg status of the farmers who have grown the rice used in pure veg khichdi?” he wrote sarcastically.

A user named Preeti Gulati wrote: “To give two cents as a historian of food practices and identity in ancient India: India is the *only* country in the world to use the label ‘pure vegetarian’ — it denotes nothing more than a deep-rooted ugly caste bias, will to preserve caste purity, and treat others as ‘impure’.”

Another user named Arnav Gupta posted: “2019: Zomato said ‘food has no religion, food is a religion’. 2024: Zomato says - untouchability makes business go brrrrrr.”

Need for separate fleet

Possibly to answer these concerns, Goyal elaborated upon the reason behind the introduction of the company’s “Pure Veg Mode” service.

“But why did we need to separate the fleets? 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,” the Zomato CEO said.

He emphasised that the new service strictly serves a dietary preference irrespective of a person’s religion or caste, and delivery partners’ participation in the new fleet will not be decided on their dietary preferences.

“I would like to repeat that this feature strictly serves a dietary preference. And I know there are a lot of customers who would never order food from a restaurant which serves meat, irrespective of their religion/caste,” Goyal said.

He concluded the post by promising that Zomato will roll back the Pure Veg Mode service in the event of significant negative social repercussions. “And I promise, that if we see any significant negative social repercussions of this change, we will roll it back in a heartbeat,” Goyal said.

About Pure Veg Mode

Goyal also cited feedback from vegetarian customers as the reason behind the launch and said that the online food delivery platform is also introducing a “Pure Veg Fleet” in India for customers who follow a 100 per cent vegetarian diet.

“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 said in a series of posts on X.

“To solve for (sic) 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% vegetarian dietary preference,” he said.

He said that for the ‘Pure Veg Mode’ the company will rope in select restaurants serving exclusively vegetarian food, and exclude any establishments offering non-vegetarian items.

The Pure Veg Fleet will use green delivery boxes instead of the standard red ones, he said.

Only orders from pure veg restaurants

Goyal said that these delivery persons will exclusively deliver orders from pure vegetarian restaurants and won’t handle any non-vegetarian meals.

Additionally, they won’t enter non-vegetarian restaurants while carrying the green delivery box.

“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,” he said.

Some users appreciated the initiative. One named Uttkarsh Singh wrote that since India has “approximately 276 million vegetarians in 2020”, it was “definitely a great initiative keeping in mind Veg people are very specific about these details”.

Another named Jitendra Jain simply wrote: “Thanks, Once i got chicken in my veg food!”

(With agency inputs)