Zomato introduces new ‘food rescue’ feature to avoid wastage, Deepinder Goyal says ‘cancelled orders will now…’

Zomato introduced a new feature on Sunday to cut down on food wastage — with customers offered ‘unbeatable’ prices to snag the discarded items. CEO Deepinder Goyal said the company saw around 4 lakh orders being cancelled every month — with such orders now popping up for customers within a 3 km radius of the delivery partner.

"We don't encourage order cancellation at Zomato, because it leads to a tremendous amount of food wastage. In spite of stringent policies, and a no-refund policy for cancellations, more than 4 lakh perfectly good orders get canceled on Zomato, for various reasons by customers," he Goyal on X.

The cancelled orders will be made available for a short time period (to ensure freshness) in their original untampered packaging. Customers will now be able to grab the order at an ‘unbeatable price’ and receive it within minutes. Food Rescue will automatically show up on the app home page if there is indeed a canceled order available.

Goyal said most restaurants affiliated with the food aggregator platform had agreed to the change. Restaurant partners will now receive compensation for the original canceled order as well as a portion of the amount paid by the new customer if the order gets claimed. The eateries will also be able to easily opt out of the initiative if they wished to make a change.

Delivery partners will be compensated fully for the entire trip — from the initial pickup to the final drop-off at the new customer’s location.

“Zomato will not keep any proceeds (except the required government taxes). The amount paid by the new customer will be shared with the original customer (if they made payment online), and with the restaurant partner. Orders containing items sensitive to distances or temperature such as ice creams, shakes, smoothies, and certain perishable items, will not be eligible for Food Rescue,” Goyal clarified.

A Bengaluru man raised concerns on X (formerly Twitter) about potential misuse of Zomato's order and cancellation system. He also recommended limiting Zomato users to cancelling no more than two orders per day to curb any misuse.

Impressed by the feedback, Zomato CEO Deepinder Goyal invited the user to share more details about himself.