Prickly Eat

MODERN BUSINESSES ARE predicated on creating new offer­ings for customers and so when Zomato announced that it would have special green uniforms to mark out delivery personnel with vegetarian food, there was nothing out of the usual. It would have done its market research and the potential benefits of such a move. It even launched the initiative with a bang with its founder and CEO Deepinder Goyal himself making a delivery donning the new look. He posted on X that the move was following feedback from vegetar­ians about particularity regarding their food’s cooking and handling. But then just a day later, he was again posting on X on why they had dropped the idea. Now, the reasons given were that non-vegetarians felt that this would end up marking them out for harass­ment. Housing societies would block red uniformed riders on special days associated with festivals and even ten­ants who were thought to have ordered non-vegetarian food could be targeted by landlords. All this was pointed out to Zomato by online backlash on social media. As Goyal wrote: “Thanks every­one for talking about this last night. You made us understand the unintended consequences of this rollout.”

Between vegetarians and non-vege­tarians, it had chosen the latter because once you take out the stridency, any decision is based on risks and rewards. Capitalism is good because it creates competition and competition is good because any weakness is immediately punished in terms of a fallout on profits. Another instance where vegetarianism wasn’t able to hold against the market was when the multiplex chain PVR merged with Inox. Inox theatres only served vegetarian food but once the merger happened, the same venues now have non-vegetarian on the menu. The combined entity made a calculation on what was better for more sales.

The viewing of non-vegetarian as a lower diet, despite it being more prevalent, might have its roots in the Indian cultural past but there is little modern scientific basis for it. Having a lot of proteins is now recognised to be es­sential for good nutrition and the Indian vegetarian diet simply finds it difficult to incorporate that. It is possible but re­quires excessive reliance on overeating expensive items like paneer. And yet, the idea that vegetarianism is more pure or healthy is ingrained into the Indian fab­ric, giving it heft against non-vegetarians that is largely illusory.

Zomato wasn’t only reversing course because of the social fallout but it was also going to lose them money. India’s vegetarians have a loud voice but the country is still majority non-vegetarians. Whenever the demand of vegetarians for exclusive spaces and services is tested against market forces, it is always going to come up short. If Zomato had continued with its new uniforms, then a large number of non-vegetarian custom­ers would simply have switched over to other food delivery services that did not mark them out as a target.

food politicsnon-vegetariansuniformsvegetarianismZomato