Zomato says its new ‘Pure Veg Fleet’ will continue to wear red instead of green as originally announced

New Delhi: Popular food delivery and restaurant aggregator company Zomato has decided that its newly introduced ‘Pure Vegetarian’ delivery fleet will continue to wear Zomato’s trademark red instead of green as originally conceived by the delivery start-up.

“All our riders — both our regular fleet, and our fleet for vegetarians, will wear the colour red,” Deepinder Goyal said on Wednesday in its latest update.

“This means that the fleet meant for vegetarian orders will not be identifiable on the ground (but will show on the app that your veg orders will be served 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… our rider’s physical safety is of paramount importance to us. We now realise that even some of our customers could get into trouble with their landlords, and that would not be a nice if that happened because of us” Goyal said in his post on X.

Update on our pure veg fleet —

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…

— Deepinder Goyal (@deepigoyal) March 20, 2024

Earlier on Tuesday, Zomato said it had launched a ‘Pure Veg’ delivery fleet to serve customers with purely vegetarian dietary preferences. Zomato said this segment was introduced after getting feedback from purely vegetarian customers who are very particular about how their food is cooked, and how their food is handled.

Zomato had said that the ‘Pure Veg’ delivery mode would consist of a curation of restaurants that serve only pure vegetarian food and will exclude all restaurants which serve any non-veg food item.

“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,” said Zomato founder Deepinder Goyal in a post on his X timeline.

In his comments on X, the Zomato founder said that the concept of a ‘Pure Veg’ fleet had drawn overwhelming response from customers.

“I have received an overwhelmingly positive response on this launch from so many people. A lot of comments from young people who eat non-veg food saying “now my parents can also use Zomato”. 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 posted.

“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. Please note that participation in our Veg delivery fleet will not discriminate on the basis of our delivery partner’s dietary preferences” he added.

I have received an overwhelmingly positive response on this launch from so many people. A lot of comments from young people who eat non-veg food saying “now my parents can also use zomato”.

I would like to repeat that this feature strictly serves a dietary preference. And I know…

— Deepinder Goyal (@deepigoyal) March 19, 2024

“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. And I promise, that if we see any significant negative social repercussions of this change, we will roll it back in a heartbeat” he further said.

To start with, Deepinder Goyal himself stepped out to deliver some pure veg orders with his delivery partners. This feature will see a phased rollout across the country in the next few weeks.

Deepinder Goyal said Zomato also plans to add more specialised fleets for special customer needs. It said a special cake delivery fleet is coming up with hydraulic balancers which will prevent the cake from getting smudged during delivery.