Thursday, May 16

‘All Our Riders Will Wear Red’: Zomato Rolls Back Green Uniform For Pure-Veg Fleet

Edited by Akhil Thomas
'All Our Riders Will Wear Red': Zomato Rolls Back Green Uniform For Pure-Veg Fleet (Photo by Ravi Sharma on Unsplash)

Zomato, the popular app-based food delivery service, has decided to cancel its decision to introduce a green uniform for those delivering food to vegetarians. Zomato CEO Deepinder Goyal made this important announcement amid backlash on social media platforms over the delivery giant’s new ‘pure veg fleet’.

In a post on X (formerly Twitter), Deepinder Goyal clarified that Zomato will continue to have a fleet for vegetarians but has decided to remove the “on-ground segregation” of this fleet. Zomato CEO said that all its delivery partners will continue to wear red.

“All our riders — both our regular fleet, and our fleet for vegetarians, will wear the colour red,” wrote Deepinder Goyal in his X post on March 20. He also said that the fleet meant for vegetarian orders will not be identifiable on the ground. However, customers will be able to see on the app that their vegetarian food is being delivered by the ‘veg-only’ fleet.

“This will ensure that our red uniform delivery partners are not incorrectly associated with non-veg food, and blocked by any RWAs or societies during any special days,” added the Zomato CEO. Deepinder Goyal also noted that the physical safety of Zomato riders is important for the company. “We now realise that even some of our customers could get into trouble with their landlords, and that would not be a nice thing if that happened because of us,” said Deepinder Goyal.

Zomato CEO also thanked social media for pointing out the issue. He said that social media made the company understand the unintended consequences of the rollout. “All the love, and all the brickbats were all so useful – and helped us get to this optimal point,” wrote Deepinder Goyal.

The food delivery platform made the announcement regarding the “pure veg” service and the separate colour code on Tuesday, March 19. While announcing this change, Deepinder Goyal also said that they will roll it back if they see any significant negative repercussions of this change.