Zomato’s green Pure Veg service fleet to sport red Tees

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After a backlash over its policy to introduce a new green uniform for its “Pure Veg Mode” service fleet, Zomato on Wednesday said the company will roll back the move.

But Zomato CEO Deepinder Goyal said the service will continue but its riders will keep wearing the regular red uniform.

The move to revert to red follows concern of some netizens over the reaction of some societies and RWAs, which may not allow the fleet to enter the premises on the basis of red-green colour segregation.

“While we are going to continue to have a fleet for vegetarians, we have decided to remove the on-ground segregation of this fleet on the ground using the colour green. All our riders — both our regular fleet, and our fleet for vegetarians, will wear the colour red,” Goyal said in an update post on X.

He said the fleet for pure veg would not be identifiable on the ground but would show on the app and assured customers that the vegetarian orders would be served by the Veg Only fleet.

Elaborating, he said the decision will ensure that Zomato’s red uniform delivery partners are not incorrectly associated with non-veg food, and blocked by any RWAs or societies during any special days.

He added that the physical safety of Zomato’s riders is of paramount importance and went on to add that “We now realise that even some of our customers could get into trouble with their landlords, and that would not be a nice thing if that happened because of us”.

He also thanked the netizens who brought up the issue “made us understand the unintended consequences of this rollout. All the love, and all the brickbats were all so useful – and helped us get to this optimal point”.

He elaborated upon the reason behind the introduction of the company’s “Pure Veg Mode” service. Because despite everyone’s best efforts, sometimes the food spills into the delivery boxes. In those cases, the smell of the previous order travels to the next order and may lead to the next order smelling of the previous order. For this reason, we had to separate the fleet for veg orders,” the Zomato CEO said. He further emphasised that the new service strictly serves a dietary preference irrespective of a person’s religion or caste.