Even as restaurants and delivery executives lock horns with Zomato, the food discovery and ordering app has rolled out its Gold offering to delivery. This was first announced by Zomato as it met with restaurant associations during the Logout campaign.
Under delivery, Zomato Gold will offer customers one free dish, which will be the second highest item on the menu with a maximum discount of Rs 300. However, it will not be applicable to MRP items and special combos. Gold on delivery can only be availed once a day across nearly 13,000 restaurants.
Gold for delivery is part of its overall Gold offering, which so far catered to dine-out only. Existing Gold members can upgrade for free.
Zomato Gold for dining-out and delivery is now operational in 16 cities, the program will expand to 25 more cities by next week. The additional cities include Mangalore, Mysuru, Vijayawada, Visakhapatnam, Agra, Amritsar, Aurangabad, Bhopal, Bhubaneswar, Dehradun, Goa, Guwahati, Gwalior, Jabalpur, Jalandhar, Kanpur, among others.
Apart from rolling out Gold to delivery, Zomato has also made some revisions to the usage of Gold for dine out. Gold is now limited to only two unlocks a day. This includes one for delivery and one for dining out. The membership has also been restricted to a single device per person. And while dining out, each table can only avail a maximum of 2 Gold unlocks.
"Food delivery was in its early stages when we launched the Gold program in 2017. Over the last 18 months, with its order frequency, it has changed the contours of food consumption in India. It has become an everyday part of life and we felt it was time that we launched Gold on Delivery for users across India. With over 13,000+ establishments across 41 cities, Zomato Gold for Delivery brings a wide choice of great restaurants to Zomato Gold members. It is also expected to drive a significant increase in business for restaurants which have signed up on Gold," Mohit Gupta, CEO- Delivery, Zomato said.
Meanwhile, the National Restaurant Association of India, which has been protesting against Zomato's Gold offering has said that it will remain logged out of Zomato.
"Essentially, it is now a program that merely promotes deep discounts on both dine-in and delivery verticals, the cost of which is borne solely by the restaurant partners," Anurag Katriar, President of NRAI said.
"NRAI continues to remain firm in its belief that Zomato Gold in its current form is an unacceptable proposition... We appeal to all restaurants and cloud kitchens entrepreneurs to stay away from Zomato Gold on delivery. Offer right quality at the right price, rather than falling for such discount gimmicks," he added.