Zomato Offers Discounted Cost for Cancelled Orders Through its 'Food Rescue' Service

Nitin Konde, Varun Bhardwaj

Nov 12, 2024 — 2 min read

Zomato Launches 'Food Rescue' Service with Discounts on Cancelled Orders

On November 10, food delivery giant Zomato unveiled a new programme dubbed "Food Rescue" that aims to cut down on food waste by allowing local customers to purchase recently cancelled orders at a reduced price. Customers, eateries, and delivery partners are all anticipated to gain from this innovation.

Despite Zomato's no-refund policy, CEO Deepinder Goyal stated that more than 400,000 purchases are cancelled every month. Order cancellation results in a significant quantity of food waste, hence Zomato discourages it. Goyal said on social networking site X (previously Twitter) that despite strict restrictions and a no-refund cancellation policy, over 4 lakh perfectly good orders are cancelled on Zomato by customers for a variety of reasons.

CEO Emphasised on Reducing Food Wastage

Finding a solution to save the food from going to waste is the first priority for the restaurant sector as well as for customers. Goyal added.

Food Rescue is a new feature that the brand is launching today! Goyal explained that cancelled purchases will now appear for local clients, who can purchase them at an unbeatable price in their original, untouched packaging and have them delivered in a matter of minutes.

How the New Feature Works?

Customers who live within three kilometres of the delivery partner holding the order can see cancelled orders on the app thanks to the "Food Rescue" feature. To preserve quality, this option will only be available for a brief period of time. To maintain freshness, some products—such as shakes, ice cream, and other foods that are sensitive to temperature—are not included in this section. Furthermore, non-vegetarian items will not be displayed to vegetarian patrons.

Customers that live close to the initial order will not be able to buy it in the interim. Both the restaurant partner and the original customer will get a share of the new customer's payment if it was made online. With the exception of required government taxes, Zomato will not keep any of the earnings.

How Will it Benefit the Restaurants and Delivery Partners?

If the order is successfully claimed, restaurant partners will get paid for the original order plus a percentage of the new customer's purchase. Using their partner app and dashboard, partners can simply choose not to take part in the Food Rescue service. Delivery partners will receive payment for the full trip, which includes both the initial pickup and the last delivery to the new client.

Zomato's most recent shareholder letter claims that during the previous quarter, the platform had an average of 498,000 active delivery partners each month. Zomato has been aggressively introducing a number of new features lately. These include a feature that was introduced in June that shows the total number of orders users have placed on the app, as well as "Brand Packs," which provide extra savings on meals from restaurants that customers usually purchase from.