Zomato CEO Deepinder Goyal clears air on the protest over Beef and Pork deliveries in West Bengal

Zomato CEO Deepinder Goyal, in his letter to employees, has cleared the air on the on-going protest by delivery partners in West Bengal. Recently, a group of Zomato delivery partners in Howrah called for an indefinite protest against delivering beef and pork orders. Reports say the CEO of an online food delivery app wrote an email letter to employees expressing his views on the situation.

Goyal said the protest was linked to a recent rate card correction and confined to one a few delivery partners. He also said the protest is limited to Howrah area and not the entire West Bengal. He also said delivery partners of deliberately framing the issue incorrectly.

"The issue was primarily related to a recent rate card correction in that area, something we routinely do," Goyal said in his letter to employees.

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Goyal said the rate card correction is part of the company's routine process and some delivery riders don’t understand those corrections. He also pointed out in his letter that the choice to work with Zomato or not lies with the delivery partner. He also said the company cannot and do not force anyone to do anything citing Zomato's fundamentals of ‘at-will’ employment.

Clarifying the issue of delivering beef and pork orders, Goyal said there were zero orders from local homes for any item containing pork in the last three months in Howrah. He further said although there was one order of a food item containing beef, the customer cancelled that order "before it was executed, let alone delivered."

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Earlier this month, a massive social debate embarked over a Zomato user's controversial demand for cancellation of his food order because a 'non-Hindu' rider was delivering it. Zomato's response to the demand with a message - "Food doesn't have a religion. It is a religion" later embroiled in another controversy, with users accusing Zomato of 'Hypocrisy' and 'Double standards' for labelling certain food choices such as 'Halal.'

(With agency inputs)