SunstarTV Bureau: Zomato has rolled out a home-style mini-menus feature on its app. A separate tab on the app will include a selection of food from partner restaurants for people in poor health, Chief executive Deepinder Goyal announced the new feature on Twitter on Tuesday. The new, curated menus include options such as khichdi, soups, rajma chawal, and other Indian staples.
“Over the last few days, one of the most-requested features on Zomato has been a selection of home-style food for people battling poor health. We just launched home style mini-menus along with thousands of restaurants across the country. #RestaurantsAgainstCOVID,” Goyal wrote on Twitter.
This is the second feature Zomato has introduced to help people facing health issues as Covid cases continue to surge in India. Last week, Zomato had rolled out priority deliveries for Covid-19 emergencies.
“For everyone whose parents are struggling with health, cannot cook, or have no help – please order for them, or even better, teach them how to use the Zomato app,” Goyal said.
For now the feature will be visible in locations covering about 85% of Zomato’s order volume. “We are adding more such mini menus to existing and new locations on a war-footing,” Goyal added.
Restaurants have been among the hardest businesses hit during the pandemic and are facing new restrictions amid the second wave. Zomato’s new initiative is also focused on helping restaurants recover.
“All our initiatives keep in mind our stakeholders. It will also help build a stronger connection between our restaurant partners and customers as they go out of their way to prepare special home-style meals for everyone at home,” a Zomato spokesperson said.
Rival Swiggy operates a cloud kitchen brand Homely, which offers home-style food in cities such Mumbai and Bengaluru. Last year, the company scaled down its cloud kitchen business amid losses during the initial months of the pandemic. Its app also has a Health Hub to discover healthy food. At present, the Hub is operational in Bangalore, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Delhi, and Chennai and has over one lakh healthy dishes from more than 7,000 outlets.
(Sources: economic times)
