Zomato defers plan to ban eateries over poor food quality after restaurants fume: Report

Restaurant partners termed the move to delist restaurants with severe food quality issues 'draconian'

Food aggregator Zomato has deferred a plan to ban eateries over customer complaints on food quality by a month after it drew flak from its restaurant partners. It said it would receive feedback from the restaurants before implementing it.

According to a report by The Indian Express, the Deepinder Goyal-helmed company has pushed its plan to implement the policy from April 18 to May 3. The new policy, titled ‘Severe Food Quality’ rules, sought to temporarily ban restaurant partners if customers complained about the food quality. It loosely defines severe food quality issues as "the presence of hazardous objects in food, serving non-vegetarian food instead of vegetarian, delivering the wrong type of meat, and rotten food."

“The disablement will be in consultation with the restaurant management and will only be applicable till necessary remedial actions are undertaken and verified through a Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI)-approved hygiene and safety auditor,” an email sent by Zomato to its restaurant partners read.

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While the FSSAI welcomed Zomato's policy, restaurant partners under the banner of National Restaurant of India (NRAI) termed the move to delist restaurants with severe food quality issues "draconian."

“While the intent of the policy is understandable, the implementation leaves a lot of grey areas and scope for misuse. Further the action of delisting is draconian. We have initiated dialogue with the Zomato team and conveyed our views. They will be meeting with us next week to resolve this in a better, more inclusive way, keeping all stakeholders in mind,” an NRAI spokesperson told the publication.

Rajat Jaiswal, co-founder of Wat-a-Burger, observed that in his restaurant, five out of 10 cancellations tend to be fake and called for a two-way street. "And of the remaining five, two or three have discrepancies where the rider hasn’t properly handled the food or the restaurant. It is just in one or two cases where the food itself genuinely has a problem," he noted.

Jaiswal also wanted customers engaging in fake reporting multiple times to be banned.

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