Zomato Scraps Green Uniform For Veg Fleet Amid Row

Food delivery company Zomato has come under criticism for its decision to introduce a “pure veg fleet” of delivery vehicles, which will not deliver food from any restaurants that serve egg, fish, chicken or any sort of meat. Amid an outcry over its announcement of a 'pure veg' fleet, Zomato has said all its delivery partners will continue to wear red, rolling back its decision to introduce a green uniform for those delivering food to vegetarians under the new service.

"While we are going to continue to have a fleet for vegetarians, we have decided to remove the on-ground segregation of this fleet on the ground using the colour green. All our riders - both our regular fleet, and our fleet for vegetarians, will wear the colour red," Zomato CEO Deepinder Goyal tweeted this morning.

"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," Mr Goyal said in the post.

He also thanked the social media for raising these points following the announcement of the "pure veg" service yesterday.

The announcement of the "pure veg" service and the separate colour code sparked a massive row on social media yesterday, with some users calling it a form of modern-day casteism. Others had pointed out how this may lead to a ban on the entry of red-uniform delivery partners in apartment complexes where vegetarians are in a majority. This, they said, would lead to inconvenience for those ordering non-vegetarian food. Some users also pointed out that this may lead to problems for tenants ordering non-vegetarian food, particularly in the localities where it is frowned upon.

Mr Goyal had yesterday said they had decided to introduce the "pure veg" service on the basis of feedback from customers. "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," he had said. He had said that for this service, Zomato will rope in restaurants serving only vegetarian food and the delivery partners in this service will not handle any non-vegetarian packets.