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“Being a vegetarian feels like a curse,” says Zomato customer who got charged Rs 2 as “veg mode fee”; Deepinder Goyal responds “This is stupid…”

A LinkedIn user called out Zomato for charging an extra charge of Rs 2 from vegetarians on the app. CEO Deepinder Goyal promptly responded by saying “it's absolutely stupid on our part.”

By Naina Yadav
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User Calls Out Zomato For Charging Extra From Vegetarians, CEO Responds

User Calls Out Zomato For Charging Extra From Vegetarians, CEO Responds

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Zomato has yet again come under the umbrella of controversy. This time, it's for a grievance that a pure vegetarian customer pointed out. 

A LinkedIn user, Rohit Ranjan, wrote on the platform stating that Zomato was charging an extra Rs 2 per order and was categorizing it as a “veg mode enablement fee.”

WHAT IS THE VEG MODE ON ZOMATO

The Veg Mode on Zomato acts like a filter that user can enable if they only want to be shown purely vegetarian restaurants to choose their dishes from. 

It instantly brings up only the vegetarian restaurants and cafes near a user's location.

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FEELS LIKE A “CURSE”…

Rohit Ranjan, on LinkedIn, said that being a vegetarian in India felt like a “curse.”

The user termed this extra charge of Rs 2 as what seems like a “premium subscription plan.”

He also wrote that vegetarians in India will have to go from “green and healthy” to “green and pricey.”

On a sarcastic note, he thanked Swiggy for treating vegetarians equally and called out Zomato for imposing a “luxury tax” on being vegetarian. 

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ZOMATO’S RESPONSE

Zomato's CEO Deepinder Goyal was quick to respond to the post and commented, “This is absolutely stupid on our part. I am super sorry for this. This charge will be removed today itself. Will also fix what's needed to fix in the team so that such s**t doesn't happen again. Thank you for pointing this out.” 

As of January 17, Deepinder added another comment on the post writing, “Removed 45 minutes ago,” indicating that Zomato had removed the extra charge immediately. 

A user responded to Deepinder’s comment and wrote, “Fascinating to see you running the show from the front line. Nothing can inspire us more.”

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THE VEGETARIAN DILEMMA

Earlier in 2024, the food delivery app faced criticism for introducing a Green Fleet of delivery persons who would wear green uniforms indicating a vegetarian-only service that would deliver orders only from pure-veg restaurants.

Even though some people praised the idea saying that the Green Fleet would avoid food vegetarian food getting mixed up with non-vegetarian food, widespread outrage and allegations of “discrimination” and “cast divide” had made Zomato pull back on the move and scrap the idea

This criticism had mostly come on social media from politicians and customers in the country.

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