Zomato has taken the first step in addressing the issue of food wastage by launching an initiative called “Food Rescue,” which allows customers to purchase their cancelled food orders at significantly discounted prices. This much-needed feature was announced by CEO Deepinder Goyal on Sunday. It would benefit customers and restaurant partners by producing low levels of excessive food wastage due to cancelled orders.
Numbers-wise, Zomato witnesses roughly 400,000 cancelled orders each month, translating into an entire lot of food wastage. “We do not welcome order cancellations at Zomato as it resulted in an unimaginable amount of food wastage,” he revealed on X. Having tough policies – such as no refunds for cancellations – didn’t help prevent that from happening.
We don’t encourage order cancellation at Zomato, because it leads to a tremendous amount of food wastage.
Inspite of stringent policies, and and a no-refund policy for cancellations, more than 4 lakh perfectly good orders get canceled on Zomato, for various reasons by customers.… pic.twitter.com/fGFQQNgzGJ
— Deepinder Goyal (@deepigoyal) November 10, 2024
The cancelled orders will be available under “Food Rescue” within a radius of delivery of 3 kilometers from the delivery partner. These are offered to new customers for a short period to guarantee freshness, and they are packed securely in their original packaging not tampered with. Customers find them on the app and grab these at unbeatable prices and expect minutes of delivery.
The restaurant partners of Zomato have generally embraced the idea, and most partners have agreed to join. In connection with the “Food Rescue” model, restaurant partners will not only receive the full compensation for the cancelled order but also get revenue-sharing from the purchase of the new customer. Restaurants can also exit the program if they so wish.
To ensure just the treatment of delivery partners, Zomato will fully compensate them for the entire trip- picking orders from their original customers till dropping them to new customers. What’s also important from their perspective here is that they do not take any proceeds from these re-sold orders, save for applicable government taxes. It will share the revenue generated between the restaurant and the customer who originally placed the order (if payment was made online).
However, all canceled items are not salvaged in “Food Rescue.” Only those perishable products or items sensitive to time and temperature, such as ice creams, shakes, or certain smoothies, are left out so as not to compromise food quality.
The whole “Food Rescue” idea of Zomato revolves around developing a more sustainable food delivery ecosystem. It allows less food waste amidst benefits for customers, restaurants, and delivery personnel.
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