Will roll back 'Pure Veg Mode' in case of negative social repercussions: Zomato CEO

After facing a backlash online from a section of people over the launch of the "Pure Veg Mode" service, Zomato CEO Deepinder Goyal on Tuesday, 19 March said the food delivery platform will "roll it back in a heartbeat" in case there is a negative social repercussions.

In a long late night post on X, Goyal also sought to allay concerns that Zomato's regular fleet may be barred by some societies and 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.

Goyal elaborated upon the reason behind 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.

The Zomato co-founder announced the launch of a "Pure Veg Mode" service on Tuesday to cater to customers who have a pure vegetarian dietary preference.

Goyal 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.

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.