Zomato has recently launched a new ‘Food Rescue’ feature allowing users to make a purchase of food orders that were cancelled by someone at a significantly more affordable price. The initiative aims to reduce food waste by making “perfectly good” but unclaimed meals available to nearby customers at reduced costs while ensuring all deliveries remain securely packed and uncontaminated. In this structure, the company will collect the taxes only and the restaurant partners will get both the original price and an added amount from the resale.
Zomato’s CEO Deepinder Goyal shared this on X (previously Twitter) stating that over 400k orders are cancelled on the platform which doesn’t allow refunds. Now, these cancelled meals will be part of the Food Rescue program, offered to local users in original, sealed packaging with quick delivery.
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---Advertisement---— Deepinder Goyal (@deepigoyal) November 10, 2024
The announcement received divergent responses on social media. While some of the users expressed fear of buying cancelled orders, others praised the chance to buy meals at cheaper rates.
Some of the feedback was as follows, a few changes proposed by Bhanu, a product manager based in Bengaluru that might improve the program’s effectiveness and also avoid cases of misuse. Bhanu made a good suggestion to exclude Cash on Delivery orders from Food Rescue and to establish a rule against order cancellation when the delivery partner is almost reaching the customer.
He expressed concerns about possible misuse of the feature, where users could exploit the discounts by coordinating to cancel and reorder meals. To avoid further abuse Bhanu suggested that Zomato set a limit on the number of cancellations per consumer within 24 hours to two.
Encouraged by the feedback, Goyal responded to a post made by Bhanu, acknowledging that these suggestions, among others, have been implemented in the feature. Kudos to the ‘good thinking’ proposed by Bhanu, Goyal asked questions regarding Bhanu’s identity and the possibility of collaboration; ‘Who are you and what do you do? Would love to know you more, and see if we can work together.
Bhanu clarified that he is a product manager from Bengaluru working for a start-up company and he clarified that he often shares feedback to enhance services over social media. This created a positive interaction where Goyal was ready to hire employees with the capabilities to provide real-life solutions to Zomato.
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The new feature highlights Zomato’s attempt to address food waste while offering users access to discounted meals, but the effectiveness of this model depends on a set of rules and regulations regarding misuse.
