Safety before food

Restaurants should be safe social places where people go to enjoy each other’s company, eat great food and build communities. People should not be worried about their safety (existential or otherwise) while visiting restaurants. Restaurants should be everybody’s happy places. But after the fire incident at Kamla Mills (Mumbai) late December last year, everyone is deeply saddened. And we know that everybody in the restaurant industry ecosystem shares the sense of loss. This was also a deeply introspective moment for Zomato as well.

This incident made Zomato take a step back and think that at some point of time in the past, they could have done something to reduce the probability of such an incident; and that realization pains immensely. Looking forward, Zomato is discovering a platform to bring in a systemic change in the entire industry so that people eat and live better.

Zomato understands that the problem is complex as multiple parties are involved, but they prefer to do their part right way. You may have heard about their food safety initiative before and now they are coming along with safety. Zomato is working with restaurants to put up fire safety license scans on Zomato. Now, putting up fire safety license scans on Zomato is just a small start – most restaurants in India ‘technically’ need a fire license to start operating. The problem is deeper and systemic in nature (e.g. fake licenses) with so many other involved parties, and the answers are going to be complex. It is noteworthy to mention here that Zomato is finding systematic solutions to prevent further incidents in restaurants.

Eventually, Zomato’s goal is to make comprehensive safety information easily accessible on the platform, so that their user community can make informed choices. They believe this will help raise safety standards across the industry and make attention to safety a differentiator for our restaurant partners.

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