Restaurant search and food delivery startup Zomato has promised to introduce precautionary measures against ‘food tampering’ after one of its delivery men was captured on camera eating from what looks like a customer’s food parcel on way to delivery.
The man in question, as per the video widely doing the rounds on social media, is seen taking a bite from the delivery parcel, repackaging it and keeping it back in the delivery bag.
The almost two-and-a-half minute-clip shows the whole act where the man wearing a red Zomato T-shirt is seen sitting on a scooter with a Zomato delivery case.
We couldn’t independently verify the video.
Just as the video surfaced, it went viral on multiple social media platforms and many people sought an explanation from Zomato.
Among many others, actor Namrata Shirodkar also posted the video on her Instagram profile, criticising the company. Here’s the full video:
Zomato later obliged and came out acknowledging the incident.
It said in a statement put up on its blog that it “maintains a zero tolerance policy for tampering of food”.
The company has relieved the delivery person of his duties following an internal investigation.
“We take these kinds of reports extremely seriously and upon thorough investigation, we’ve found that the video was shot in Madurai. The person in the video happened to be a delivery partner on our fleet. We have spoken to him at length – and while we understand that this was a human error in judgement, we have taken him off our platform,” Zomato said in the statement.
The company further promised to “introduce tamper-proof tapes, and other precautionary measures” to add an extra layer of safeguard against food tampering.
The company added that the “unfortunate” incident makes its commitment to fleet training, scheduling and process even stronger.
“We will educate our delivery fleet of over 1.5 lakh partners to highlight or escalate any such deviations to us,” the statement read.
