Zomato and Feeding India are on a mission to battle food wastage and hunger

New Delhi, 06 February 2019: Feeding India, an award-winning non-profit organization working towards solving the challenges of food wastage, hunger, and malnutrition, is now a part of the Zomato family.

After witnessing the magnitude of food wastage in a wedding, Ankit Kawatra quit his job and founded Feeding India along with Srishti Jain in 2014. Since then, the team with its five sustainable programs has been working towards picking up excess food and redistributing it to people across hunger spots in 65+ cities in India. Till date, Feeding India has served 20 million meals through its 12 food recovery vans, 50+ community fridges, and 8500+ volunteer-network.

Speaking on the development, Deepinder Goyal, Founder & CEO, Zomato, said, “We have so far, taken environmental issues head-on with non-plastic initiatives like preventing the consumption of single-use plastic cutlery and promoting biodegradable packaging for food delivery. As we welcome Feeding India into the Zomato family, we will take this battle a notch higher by helping them build a system where excess food is directed to those in need. As a start, we aim to activate the restaurants on our platform into the Feeding India network and help them use technology to scale their volunteer operations. Feeding India will become a core part of our DNA and a significant step in our mission to ensure ‘better food for more people’. My many conversations with Ankit and Srishti have convinced me of our belief in a shared mission, and I am confident that together we will make a positive impact on food wastage and hunger.”

Zomato and Feeding India will together target every source of food wastage - farms, restaurants, hotels, supermarkets, corporates and events. The Zomato network will plug into Feeding India’s already existing models that focus on sustainably feeding the many who sleep hungry every night.

“Our ambitious aim is to end hunger and food wastage not just in India, but globally. I’m delighted to strengthen this movement with Zomato, given its vision of ‘better food for more people’ and our shared mission to combat hunger and food wastage. We see this collaboration as a pivotal step against food insecurity. I believe that restaurants can play a transformational role in powering hunger-free cities, and I look forward to working with the Zomato network in the future,” added Ankit Kawatra, Founder, Feeding India.

Feeding India not only donates excess food from various sources including events, airports, weddings, restaurants, corporates, etc. that would otherwise go to landfills but also cooks fresh food through innovative kitchen-models to support people, especially women and children, with limited access to food and nutrition. Over the last four years, the organization has been recognized by the Queen of England, the United Nations World Food Program and even by the Prime Minister of India.

Zomato, as a Food Co., aims to solve for every step of the food value chain. Its initiatives like HyperPure and Hygiene Ratings are focused on the quality of food and transparency. With biodegradable packaging and pro-environment messaging, Zomato actively engages in behavior

change. Its reward points program, Zomato Piggybank, has helped raise funds equivalent to 22 lakh meals within six months of its launch.

About Zomato:

Founded by Deepinder Goyal and Pankaj Chaddah in 2008, Zomato is a restaurant search and discovery platform providing in-depth information for over 1.4 million restaurants across 24 countries and serves more than 50 million users every month.

In addition to restaurant search and discovery, Zomato has expanded its offering to Online Ordering (Food Delivery), Take Away services (Self Pickup), Table Reservations, B2B food ingredient supply for restaurants (HyperPure), Corporate Catering Portal (Food at Work) and subscription-based programs like Zomato Gold and Zomato Piggybank, creating cutting-edge technology to connect restaurant businesses and customers. In addition to these services, Zomato is also used by consumers to discover, rate, and review restaurants, as well as create their own personal networks of fellow food enthusiasts for trusted recommendations.

About Feeding India:

Post witnessing food for 5,000 people being wasted at a single wedding, in 2014, Ankit Kawatra quit his corporate job at the age 22 to start Feeding India, an award-winningF not-for-profit organization working to solve the problem of hunger, malnutrition and food wastage. In a short span of time, Feeding India has grown from a team of two to a network of 8500+ volunteers in 65+ cities, serving 20 million meals to people. It’s five key programs aim at serving children, women, elderly and specially-abled who otherwise have no means or access to food and nutrition. The organization’s philosophy is to give food as an incentive to come to school or skill development centers which gets them out of the poverty cycle in the long-run. Feeding India aims to revolutionize the nonprofit sector by developing sustainable projects to solve the challenge of hunger and food wastage. It has been recognized by stakeholders across the globe, including United Nations World Food Programme, Queen of England and Prime Minister of India, for its innovative programs such as launching electric vehicles to redistribute excess food, setting up community fridges pan-India and initiating a helpline number to enable easy food donations.