Zomato’s 10-Min Delivery Plan Draws Criticism

Indian food delivery service Zomato has gotten a wave of social media backlash over its plans to launch a 10-minute food delivery service that critics say endangers drivers and riders.

As Reuters reported Tuesday (March 22), Zomato CEO Deepinder Goyal announced Monday (March 21) that “Zomato Instant” would use a densely located network of food “finishing stations” to deliver popular items from restaurants with the help of a demand prediction algorithm.

“Nobody in the world has so far delivered hot and fresh food in under 10 minutes at scale,” Goyal wrote on LinkedIn and Twitter. “We were eager to be the first.”

But within hours, the announcement received a host of replies, many of them negative.

“I don’t want to eat food that someone has brought to me while keeping his life at risk,” wrote Gunjan Rastogi, a researcher at India’s RSB Insights & Analytics.

“This is absurd!” Karti P. Chidambaram, an Indian lawmaker, said on Twitter. “It’s going to put undue pressure on the delivery personnel.”

This is absurd! It’s going to put undue pressure on the delivery personnel, who are not employees & who have no benefits or security, who have no bargaining power with @zomato I have raised this in Parliament & have written to the Govt. Will pursue this further. https://t.co/fH8yflloiY pic.twitter.com/PfQIe2nfR4

— Karti P Chidambaram (@KartiPC) March 21, 2022

Goyal issued another tweet Tuesday (March 22), stressing that delivery will be “safe” for riders who will face no penalties. He urged critics to understand the model “before the outrage.”

Hello twitter, good morning :)

I just want to tell you more about how 10-minute delivery works, and how it is as safe for our delivery partners as 30-minute delivery.

This time, please take 2 minutes to read through this (before the outrage) :D

(1/2) https://t.co/PKKn97NhTf pic.twitter.com/NAfw20K1rF

— Deepinder Goyal (@deepigoyal) March 22, 2022

Read more: India’s Delivery Services Zomato, Blinkit to Merge, Report Says

Last week, Zomato announced it would conduct an all-stock merger with Blinkit which will value the instant-delivery service at between $700 million and $750 million.

In August 2021, Zomato acquired a more-than-9% stake in Blinkit for almost $68 million. The company has also said it plans to invest up to $400 million to the Indian quick commerce market over the next two years.