Restaurants claim that Zomato’s new food quality policy, which goes into effect on April 18 and potentially leads to a suspension on the aggregator platform based on consumer complaints, is one-sided and would harm them. Zomato has written an e-mail to restaurant partners informing them that food quality complaints may result in the temporary deactivation of a restaurant on its network following an inquiry. The suspension will remain in effect until a restaurant undertakes an FSSAI-approved third-party inspection. The restaurant would bear the whole expense of the audit.
‘While the policy’s goal is positive, Zomato’s approach to implementing it is concerning. It might be a draconian step for cheap restaurants and tiny cloud kitchens on the platform, who would dedicate their life, blood, and sweat to their company,’ said Pranav Rungta, chairman of the National Restaurants Association of India’s Mumbai branch (NRAI). ‘How would Zomato truly determine if the complaint is legitimate through a customer service professional sitting in a call centre and looking at a photo of the dish given by the consumer?’ he wondered.
Meanwhile, the NRAI is writing a letter to Zomato outlining its concerns, which will be submitted by Saturday. NRAI President Kabir Suri has already spoken with Zomato co-founder Mohit Gupta, and they will meet next week to try to settle the matter while taking into account the concerns of all parties. ‘We can be responsible for the food till it exits the restaurants. Following that, a mix-up may occur at the delivery executives’ end or even after it reaches a consumer,’ Rungta noted.
According to QSR company Samosa Party, there have also been cases in the sector where a rival attempted to intentionally damage a restaurant by tweeting about quality difficulties on social media or fabricating bogus reviews. ‘It is our aim to persuade people that the assumption that filthy is pleasant is incorrect, particularly in the savories category in which we operate. One does not have to come at the expense of the other,’ Diksha Pande, co-founder of the Samosa Party, explained.
‘On the other hand, Zomato’s new strategy appears to be quite unilateral, with one side of the narrative given more weight than the other. It is not acceptable to penalize restaurants when the blame is not always theirs, she continued. In an e-mail to restaurants, Zomato stated that a few examples of a severe food quality issues are the presence of hazardous foreign objects in the food such as insects and sharp objects such as glass, serving pre-packaged food, non-vegetarian food instead of vegetarian food, the wrong type of meat, and rotten food.
‘Such a strategy, for example, will disproportionately harm tiny, budget-conscious eateries like us. Students, for example, have a habit of filing complaints in order to receive reimbursements. However, for high-end eateries with typical order prices of Rs 2,000 or more, this may not be a problem,’ said Rajat Jaiswal, co-founder of Wat-a-Burger. ‘On the aggregator sites, around 70% of client complaints turn out to be fraudulent. Why not penalize a consumer who files a false complaint if restaurants are penalized? If restaurants are prohibited from taking orders, then customer IDs whose complaints are found to be false should likewise be prohibited from ordering,’ he stated.
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