Zomato hellbent to add Gold programme to its delivery menu  

While the tussle between the National Restaurant Association of India (NRAI) and food aggregators as well as delivery platforms appears to be resolving soon, Zomato is hellbent to carry on with its plans, to make its contentious Gold programme now available for delivery.

In an earlier meeting with the NRAI, both the trade body and food aggregators reached an in-principle agreement barring on Zomato Gold, with the NRAi saying it is an "entirely unacceptable proposition" due to the stated stance of #ZoGoisNoGo.

"There has been a long-standing demand from our users to bring Gold to delivery, since delivery constitutes a large part of their engagement with us," a Zomato spokesperson said in a statement on Saturday.

"We have been working on this and will be launching a programme soon across multiple cities," it added.

According to Anurag Katriar, Head of NRAI Mumbai Chapter, Zomato which has been at the logger-heads with the association over the Zomato Gold programme in dine-in services wanted to push through its Gold programme in the delivery services which the NRAI has outrightly rejected.

According to Zomato, "we have utilised the recent time to secure valuable feedback from our restaurant partners to ensure the Gold programme we launch is sustainable and aids the growth of the industry".

In the meeting, the NRAI deliberated eight critical issues pertaining to the online delivery space with two key aggregators, Swiggy and Zomato.

"Both of them deduced issues of deep discounting, high and uneven commission charges, data masking and mandatory bundling of services which are crippling the restaurant industry. There is an in-principle agreement to resolve these issues within a specific timeline," Katriar said.

The broad contours of resolving each of the issues were chalked out and meetings with the two aggregators are likely to take place in the second week of September to update the reformation progress.

"In the back to back meetings, Swiggy's approach was fairly constructive. They understood all our viewpoints, and promised to come back with an actionable plan in the follow-up meeting," he said.

A Swiggy spokesperson said that the company and the NRAI are committed to creating value for both restaurants and consumers in a sustainable manner.