'People cancel for a reason': Zomato CEO Deepinder Goyal's new plan to curb food wastage on order cancellation leaves fans divided

Have you ever canceled a food order because the waiting time kept increasing due to various reasons? You're not alone. CEO of Zomato, the food delivery company, Deepinder Goyal has brought out a new plan to curb food wastage due to order cancellations at the last moment, especially when the order is on the way, and the new move is getting mixed reactions from fans.

Zomato's new plan to curb food wastage on order cancellation

We don't encourage order cancellation at Zomato, because it leads to a tremendous amount of food wastage.

Inspite of stringent policies, and and a no-refund policy for cancellations, more than 4 lakh perfectly good orders get canceled on Zomato, for various reasons by customers.¡­ pic.twitter.com/fGFQQNgzGJ

¡ª Deepinder Goyal (@deepigoyal) November 10, 2024

Zomato CEO Deepinder Goyal revealed that the company doesn't encourage order cancellations because it leads to food wastage. He said that despite coming up with a no-refund policy, the order cancellations haven't seen a decline. In fact, nearly 4 lakh orders get cancelled every month. So, to curb food wastage, they have come up with a new plan

The new feature is called Food Rescue

What will it do? If a user cancels an order, Zomato users in the range of 3 km will get notified about it and get a chance to claim it with a discounted price, thus ensuring that the food doesn't get wasted. If you're wondering if you will stale food, Goyal said that the offer will only be available for a few minutes after it has been cancelled. This is only for orders cancelled after they are on their way to be delivered.

Will Zomato benefit twice from this?

More details ¨C

The canceled order will pop up on the app for customers within a 3 km radius of the delivery partner carrying the order.

To ensure freshness, the option to claim will only be available for a few minutes.

Zomato will not keep any proceeds (except the required¡­

¡ª Deepinder Goyal (@deepigoyal) November 10, 2024

No, Zomato has ensured that it will not take the money received from second buyer and rather it would distribute it restaurant partner. Meanwhile, delivery partners will be compensated fully for deliveries to both locations.

Can't they offer the food to poor and needy?

As a user asked this question, Goyal clarified:

Firstly, we are not keeping any of the money. This is mentioned in the tweet thread.

Secondly, distributing these orders to the needy is challenging ¨C
1. Most places where we can distribute them are away from urban centres
2. Distributing free food to the needy is fraught with¡­

¡ª Deepinder Goyal (@deepigoyal) November 10, 2024

Fans react: We cancel orders because of 50-60 min delay in delivery

While most people applauded this new move by Zomato, several others thought that the food delivery company missed out on the main problem - which is order cancellations due to delay in delivery, sometime by more than 50-60 minutes of delay. "Very innovative," said one user. Another pointed out some suggestions and got a job offer from Goyal.

All this and more already in place. Good thinking, btw. Who are you and what do you do? Would love to know you more, and see if we can work together? :)

DM me please if you wanna chat more.

¡ª Deepinder Goyal (@deepigoyal) November 10, 2024

"Mostly the reason is delay in delivery. Work on that," one of the users wrote. "Sure all these 4 lakh orders get cancelled by customers, or is there some role of riders & restaurants too? I had to cancel a few times because of significant delay by the restaurant or rider. Restaurant delay means food wasn't probably even prepared at cancel time," said a user.

Hi Deepinder

I think its a great step towards saving food.
One more thing You guys need to work around is that at times food delivery guy takes long hauls in between to suit other deliveries. E.g. once the guy collected my order, He was coming to my destination but got another¡­

¡ª Vishwajeet (@vickyisbond1981) November 10, 2024

"You have to find out why people cancel their order. I too cancelled a few times as the order was getting too late (50-60 mnts). My friend @bhavsarJ2_0 once waited for almost 2 hours. The excuse given by you is that you were reducing carbon footprints," said another user.

What do you think of Zomato's new plan to curb food wastage during order cancellation? Do you support Deepinder Goyal?

Also Read: Deepinder Goyal reveals Zomato's flirty messages are often inspired by his own cheesy texts to wife Gia

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