Zomato renames ‘pure veg’ mode to ‘veg only’ amid social media row

Zomato has renamed its ‘pure veg’ mode to ‘veg only’ and dropped the plan to have a separate colour-coded fleet for exclusively delivering vegetarian food, following an online backlash citing concerns around community and caste-based discrimination.

Several users took to social media to criticise Zomato's decision to use the term ‘pure veg’ and have delivery personnel dress up in green instead of the regular red uniforms to ferry vegetarian food.

On Wednesday, Zomato rolled back green uniforms which the pure-veg food-delivery fleet was earlier supposed to wear.


“Delivery partners onboarded on Zomato will never be discriminated against on the basis of any criteria,” the company said while pointing out that customers cannot select delivery partners based on the drivers' dietary preferences.

The food-delivery platform has stated that the introduction of a separate fleet will not lead to any changes or affect the pay-outs for delivery partners. The "veg-only mode" will be live for users by next week and will be gradually rolled out across the country, the company said in a post on X.

Zomato’s platform had 419,000 average monthly active delivery partners in the December quarter.

According to Zomato chief executive Deepinder Goyal, the latest move to introduce a veg-only mode was implemented considering India has the largest share of vegetarians in the world. It aligned with the broader strategy of the company to expand its total addressable market.