 "Zomato's 'Food Rescue' feature offers cancelled orders at discounted rate")
Food delivery giant Zomato introduced a new initiative called ‘Food Rescue’, on Sunday (November 10) designed to reduce food waste by letting nearby customers buy recently cancelled orders at a discounted rate. This feature is expected to benefit customers, restaurants, and delivery partners alike.
Zomato CEO Deepinder Goyal mentioned that over 400,000 orders are cancelled each month, even with the platform’s no-refund policy.
“We don’t encourage order cancellation at Zomato, because it leads to a tremendous amount of food wastage. Inspite of stringent policies, and a no-refund policy for cancellations, more than 4 lakh perfectly good orders get cancelled on Zomato, for various reasons by customers,” Goyal posted on social media platform X (formerly Twitter).
He further mentioned that the primary concern for the restaurant industry, and even the customers who cancel orders, is finding a way to prevent the food from going to waste.
“Today, we are introducing a new feature (being scaled as we speak) – Food Rescue! cancelled orders will now pop up for nearby customers, who can grab them at an unbeatable price, in their original untampered packaging, and receive them in just minutes,” Goyal said.
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How will Zomato’s ‘Food Rescue’ feature work?
The ‘Food Rescue’ feature allows cancelled orders to appear on the app for customers located within 3 kilometres of the delivery partner holding the order. This option will remain open only for a short time to maintain quality.
Certain items, including ice creams, shakes, and other temperature-sensitive foods, are excluded from this feature to ensure freshness. Additionally, vegetarian customers will not be shown non-vegetarian items.
Meanwhile, customers in the vicinity of the original order will not have the option to purchase it. If the original customer paid online, they will receive a portion of the amount paid by the new customer, as will the restaurant partner. Zomato will not retain any portion of the proceeds, apart from necessary government taxes.
How will it work for restaurants and delivery partners?
Restaurant partners will receive payment for the initial order and a portion of the amount from the new customer if the order is successfully claimed. Partners who prefer not to participate in the Food Rescue feature can easily opt-out using their partner app and dashboard.
Delivery partners will be compensated for the entire journey, covering the initial pickup and the final delivery to the new customer.
According to Zomato’s recent shareholder letter, the platform averaged 498,000 active delivery partners per month in the previous quarter.
Recently, Zomato has been actively rolling out various new features. These include ‘Brand Packs,’ which offer additional discounts on food from frequently ordered restaurants, and a feature launched in June that displays the total number of orders users have placed on the app.