Zomato to discuss new delisting policy with restaurants body next week

Mumbai: Food delivery platform Zomato and the National Restaurants Association of India (NRAI) will meet next week to discuss the company’s new policy, under which it could temporarily remove restaurants from its app based on customers’ complaints.

Under Zomato’s new policy, which is set to take effect on April 18, a customer’s complaint about food or drink that could potentially cause serious harm to their health or well-being would be classified as ‘severe food quality complaint’ and could cause the restaurant to be temporarily delisted.

The advisory, sent to restaurant partners on Wednesday, triggered a pushback from NRAI, which represents over 500,000 restaurants. On April 15, NRAI president Kabir Suri discussed the association’s concerns over a call with Zomato cofounder Mohit Gupta.

“While the intent of the policy is understandable, the implementation leaves a lot of grey areas and scope for misuse. Further, the action of delisting is draconian. We have initiated dialogue with the Zomato team and conveyed our views. They will be meeting with us next week to resolve this in a better, more inclusive way, keeping all stakeholders in mind,” Suri said in a statement.

NRAI executives said the policy, the first of its kind, was introduced without consulting with restaurants and allowed Zomato to exert undue influence on listed eateries. Many said Zomato was overstepping its role and was not authorised to “investigate” restaurants.

Zomato did not immediately respond to ET’s queries.