Gurgaon: After a video of a Zomato delivery man eating food reportedly meant for delivery went viral on social media, Zomato investigated the issue and published a statement regarding the same on their site.
In the release, Zomato stated that, after a thorough investigation, they found that the video was shot in Madurai and that the individual in the video “happened to be a delivery partner” on their fleet. “We have spoken to him at length–and while we understand that this was a human error in judgement, we have taken him off our platform,” the statement read.
Attempting to reassure their customers, Zomato in its statement added, “We would like to iterate that given our multiple communication channels with users, who expect the highest standards from Zomato and highlight the smallest of deviations to us as soon as they receive their orders, this is highly unusual and a rare case.”
Admitting that this incident highlighted a real possibility of food tampering during delivery, they stated that they “take this very seriously and will soon introduce tamper-proof tapes, and other precautionary measures to ensure we add an extra layer of safeguard against such behaviour.”
They also assured that they would educate their delivery fleet of over 1.5 lakh partners “to highlight or escalate any such deviations to us, while also encouraging our users—the custodians of our platform—to highlight the smallest of anomalies to us.”
Acknowledging that their delivery partners are the face of their brand, they said, “Our food delivery business has grown immensely over the last year on the back of our large delivery partner fleet that work very hard to ensure that Zomato translates to a high quality food experience. We thank them and the strong support and trust from our restaurant partners, consumers and investors.”
At the end of their statement, they reiterated that they maintain a zero tolerance policy towards food tampering and that after this incident, they are more committed to fleet training, scheduling and processing. They also maintained that they stand behind their “extensive fleet who do the right thing across many hours of the day.”
