Food delivery giant Zomato has introduced a ‘large order fleet’, that will help the company handle group party or event orders. This intends to serve a gathering of up to 50 people.
Taking to X, Zomato founder and CEO Deepinder Goyal said, “Today, we are excited to introduce India's first large order fleet, designed to handle all your large (group, party, or event) orders with ease. This is an all-electric fleet, designed specifically to serve orders for a gathering of up to 50 people.”
In December 2023, the Economic Times reported that it planned to diversify into the catering business. Speaking to ET, Rakesh Ranjan, chief executive for food delivery, said, “If I want to have a gathering of 20 people at home, right now food delivery does not lend itself well to that kind of use case. It's winter, I want to have a party, or I want to do a small picnic in the local park. There are tons of such use cases in the offline world. But the food delivery does not lend itself to it very well.”
Initially, Zomato used to deliver such large orders to multiple regular fleet delivery partners. Goyal highlighted, “The customer experience wasn’t what we really aspired for. These new vehicles should solve most of the problems our customers face while placing large orders on Zomato.”
However, these vehicles are a work in progress. Zomato is still in the “process of adding important enhancements to them—like cooling compartments and hot boxes with temperature control—to ensure everything arrives just the way you like.”
In March this year, Zomato introduced a pure vegetarian mode intended for strictly vegetarian customers in India, to be delivered by a "Pure Veg Fleet." The company even planned to give green uniforms to riders delivering those vegetarian orders. However, amidst the backlash faced by the food tech company about the move, Goyal scrapped the plan. Neitizens had expressed concern about how the move would lead to discriminatory behavior.
