A video of a man, assumed to be a delivery agent with food aggregator Zomato, has gone viral after it showed him eating food reportedly meant for delivery.
The delivery agent in Zomato gear is seen sitting on his scooter on the side of a road with his delivery consignment. The video from the unidentified location begins with him eating out of what looks like a parcel meant for delivery. He keeps the parcel box back in the consignment package and takes out another one. After eating from the second box, he closes it and keeps it back inside. He is then seen adjusting the sealing of a smaller packet after which he prepares to leave.
After the video went viral, many people took to Twitter to express concern over the incident. The company issued a statement shortly after, stating that it had launched an investigation into the matter.
A statement from a Zomato spokesperson said, “We take these kinds of reports extremely seriously and are investigating possible causes internally. We would however like to iterate that - if this video is authentic, given our multiple communication channels with users, who expect the highest standards from Zomato and highlight the smallest deviations and anomalies to us as soon as they receive their orders, this is an unusual and rare case.”
Following the incident, the company has also decided to issue new packaging that cannot be tampered with.
“Unfortunately, this also highlights a real possibility for tampering with the food, on the way to delivery from a restaurant. We take this very seriously and will soon introduce tamper proof tapes, and other precautionary measures to ensure we safeguard against this. Additionally we will educate our delivery fleet of over 1.5 lakh partners to highlight or escalate any such deviations to us, while also encouraging our users - the custodians of our platform to highlight the smallest anomalies to us,” the statement said.
The statement also thanked the company's delivery partners as well as restaurant partners, consumers and investors for their continued trust and support.
What is this @Zomato I just placed an order, should I cancel it? pic.twitter.com/L6izWHajpO
— Ankita (@Miss_Takken) December 10, 2018