Zomato had introduced its ‘Veg mode’ for vegetarian users last year amid some controversy, and its implementation still seems to be causing some debate for the company.
Zomato CEO Deepinder Goyal has apologized for charging customers who opted for vegetarian deliveries an extra fee, and said he’d get the fee scrapped immediately. Goyal was responding to a LinkedIn user who complained about the extra fee he had to pay for ordering vegetarian deliveries.
“Being a vegetarian in India these days feels like curse!” LinkedIn user Rohit Ranjan had posted. “Zomato’s latest masterstroke—introducing an “extra charge” for the veg enablement fleet—has officially turned us into a premium subscription plan. So, fellow herbivores, brace yourselves! We’ve gone from “green and healthy” to “green and pricey.” Thanks, Zomato, for proving once again that being veg is now a luxury tax!,” he had added. Ranjan also shared a screenshot which showed Zomato charging a “Veg mode enablement fee” of Rs. 2 in addition to its platform fee of Rs. 10, and delivery fee of Rs. 47.
The post caught the attention of Zomato CEO Deepinder Goyal, who immediately apologized. “This is absolutely stupid on our part. I am super sorry for this. This charge will be removed today itself,” he posted on LinkedIn. “Will also fix what’s needed to fix in the team so that such s**t doesn’t happen again. Thank you for pointing this out,” he added.
This was a proactive response from the Zomato CEO, who worked to fix the problem within a day of the issue being highlighted. But Zomato’s Veg Mode — which had been longstanding demand of Zomato users — has been dogged with controversy since it was first introduced last year. When the veg mode was first launched with a separate delivery fleet that carried only vegetarian food, a section of the internet was outraged because the veg fleet delivery riders would wear green as opposed to the usual red, which some claimed would cause discrimination against non-vegetarian users by their neighbours who’d see red delivery partners delivering food to them. Zomato had then said it would keep a common uniform for its entire fleet. But this hadn’t pleased the online mob, which then said that the name “Pure Veg” was discriminatory, and forced Zomato to change it to ‘Veg Mode’.
It’s unclear what the status of Veg Mode currently is — in some cities, Zomato doesn’t given an option of opting into a Veg-only fleet — but does have an option to only browse through vegetarian dishes on its app through a Veg Mode toggle. Zomato seemed to be charging extra for enabling this mode with a vegetarian fleet, which met with the displeasure of some users. However Zomato CEO Deepinder Goyal himself called the move “stupid”, and reversed it immediately. It’s hard to understand why Zomato was charging an extra fee for vegetarian deliveries in the first place, but does seem to have rolled it back after feedback from its userbase.