The wildfire of #SayNoToZomatoGold reaches Vadodara!

Aggressive discounts, killer penalties and an all-time low profit margin later, Zomato may now find it a tad bit difficult to introduce the ‘Gold’ scheme in Vadodara.

The bitter brawl between restaurants and Zomato has been spreading in the country like wildfire and is showing no signs of cooling off. Food aggregator Zomato has been aggressively selling their Zomato Gold package to people who are frequent users of the online food ordering app. This package offered tempting deals such as buy-one-get-one on food and drinks on prices as low as Rs. 1500 per annum.

Zomato was introduced in India as a food/restaurant rating and reviewing app, which turned to an online food delivery app after which majority of the restaurant owners complained that the public was losing out on the ‘dining-in’ or the restaurant experience. After this, Zomato introduced the Gold package to the users in cities such as Mumbai, Pune, Delhi, Bangalore, etc. to allegedly curb this situation. However, this package in turn brought in a turmoil of discount spree that significantly brought down the profit margins of the restaurant owners.

On the city front, around 11-13 restaurants had previously logged out of Zomato in support of the national level #Logout campaign due to deep discount, uneven commission and Rs. 25 penalty charged if more than 25 minutes are taken to prepare the food. The intensity of the situation has now taken a grave turn as the Vadodara Food Entrepreneurs (VFE) is now retaliating to Zomato Gold’s introduction in the city by joining hands with the National Restaurants Association of India (NRAI) who is spearheading the #SayNoToZomatoGold campaign on a national level.

Around 137 restaurants are associated with the VFE and have taken several rounds of meetings with the members of the association in the light of this escalating situation. “We are being deeply affected by the intensive discounts and uneven commissions taken by Zomato. This is already affecting our profit margins by a lot and by introducing Gold in the city, we will be put in a much worse situation”, said Jigar Desai, owner of Pepparazzi – The Diner.

The VFE is hoping to jointly curb the matter and come to an advantageous conclusion with Zomato.