Zomato on Thursday said it has dropped the word “pure” from the name of its new mode, which is meant to cater to the dietary preferences of ‘100% vegetarians’. This mode will now be called “Veg-only Mode”.
Amid fears that this mode, which will have a “dedicated” delivery fleet, will allow users to select delivery partners of a particular community or dietary preference, the company clarified that there will be no such option.
In a post on social media platform X, which came from Zomato’s social media handle, the company said: “Delivery partners onboarded on Zomato will never be discriminated against on the basis of any criteria.” A spokesperson clarified that the “dedicated” fleet of delivery partners will in no way be visually distinguishable from any other delivery partner of the enterprise.
While more clarity is awaited on how the partners for this fleet will be selected, the company intends to select from an existing pools of partners. Gig workers’ unions and delivery partners have been concerned about the composition of the new fleet, whether any filters based on community or religion will be applied, and whether earnings will be affected.
In a statement, Zomato said that earnings will not be impacted.
Since the first announcement by Mr. Goyal on Tuesday, introducing the “Pure Veg Mode” and the “Pure Veg Fleet” for the app, the company has in the last 48 hours, first reversed the decision to dress its vegetarian-mode fleet in a separate green uniform, and has now gone back on using terminology like “pure”, which activists and academics pointed out was inevitably going to reinforce the already existing deep-seated association between vegetarianism and purity that has been prevalent in India.
Immediately after the announcement on Tuesday, delivery partners, gig workers’ unions, activists and academics denounced the move, arguing that it would only fan existing discrimination faced by the delivery partners of marginalised religions and castes at the hands of rogue resident welfare associations and housing societies.
In a post later on Tuesday night and then on Wednesday morning, Mr. Goyal had admitted to the problems with dressing their separate fleet in a distinguishable way, saying this might put red-uniformed partners in harm’s way.
In the latest statement, Zomato said: “The feature which allows customers to see and order from veg-only restaurants on the app will go live by next week. Just like every other feature, this will also see a phased rollout across the country.”
