India’s overall food delivery market might be plateauing, but companies are still hard at work to deliver a better experience to their customers.
Zomato has said it’s launched a “Pure Veg” mode for its users. This mode will work only for pure-veg restaurants, and filter out restaurants that serve any non-vegetarian items. This mode will also have a separate delivery fleet that’ll only deliver vegetarian food, and ensure that non-vegetarian food is never carried in its pure-veg fleet. Zomato said the feature would be rolled out across the country in a phased manner.
“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,” wrote Zomato CEO Deepinder Goyal on X. “To solve for their dietary preferences, we are today, launching a “Pure Veg Mode” along with a “Pure Veg Fleet” on Zomato, for customers who have a 100% vegetarian dietary preference,” he added.
“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,” he explained. “Please note that this Pure Veg Mode, or the Pure Veg Fleet doesn’t serve or alienate any religious, or political preference,” he clarified.
Like is his wont, Goyal is leading from the front with the launch of the Pure Veg mode. He shared a picture of himself dressed in a green uniform — which will differentiate the pure veg fleet — personally delivering food to customers.
The launch of the Pure Veg mode addresses a longstanding demand of many Zomato users who’re uneasy about ordering from the food delivery platform, worried whether the food has been transported in the same containers that transport non-vegetarian food. With Zomato now offering a dedicated fleet for vegetarian deliveries, users can rest easy that their food is only being prepared in a vegetarian restaurant, but is also being delivered in vehicle that exclusively transports vegetarian food.
And it’s innovation like this that’ll help companies stand apart in what is essentially a duopoly in India’s food ordering space. It’s likely that users who’re purely vegetarian will use Zomato’s Pure Veg offering while ordering, and could end up choosing the service over arch-rival Swiggy. While it’s likely that Swiggy will soon copy the feature, India’s decade-old food ordering space appears to be still coming up with new ideas on delivering core features for customers.