Food delivery major Zomato has launched an initiative called “Food Rescue” to reduce food wastage. The platform said that every month, about four lakh food orders are cancelled, posing a serious challenge, and that it has been working on possible solutions to reduce this food wastage. It added that almost all of restaurant partners have signed up to participate in this initiative. 

With the introduction of the Food Rescue initiative, cancelled orders will now pop up for nearby customers, who can grab them at a cheaper price, in their original untampered packaging, and will receive them in just minutes, it added. 

“Food Rescue will show up on your home page automatically if there’s a cancelled order available for you to grab. Refresh the home page to check for any newly available orders which need to be rescued,” stated Zomato Founder Deepinder Goyal in a post on X. 

Explaining how this indicative will work, Zomato said that, ”the cancelled order will pop up on the app for customers within a 3 km radius of the delivery partner carrying the order. To ensure freshness, the option to claim will only be available for a few minutes. The original customer and those in their immediate vicinity will not receive the option to claim the order.”

“The amount paid by the new customer will be shared with the original customer (if they made online payment), and with the restaurant partner. Zomato will not keep any proceeds (except the required government taxes). Customers who prefer vegetarian food will not see non-veg orders,” it added. 

However, orders containing items sensitive to distances or temperature, such as ice creams, shakes, smoothies, and certain other perishable items, will not be eligible. 

It stressed that restaurant partners will continue to receive compensation for the original cancelled order, plus a portion of the amount paid by the new customer if the order is claimed. If, for any reason, restaurant partners don’t wish to participate, they can instantly opt out via their Restaurant partner app and dashboard, it added. 

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

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