After a recent viral Substack post revealed a filthy cloud kitchen in Bengaluru that was running 200+ distinct businesses from the same location, food tech giant Zomato is adopting a severe stance against them.
Food brands prompted various concerns regarding food safety and hygiene requirements because their menus included little to no distinction.
Zomato will now “manually inspect any physical site” that operates more than 10 brands out of a single unit in order to address the issue.
Even the best-organised outlets in the sector, according to the company, do not gain operational benefits or build customer trust by operating too many brands from a single kitchen, despite the fact that there is no perfect science to the ideal number of brands.
Zomato added that it was in discussions with its restaurant partners and the National Restaurant Association of India (NRAI) to find the best way to stop these behaviours that can damage the reputation of the food industry.
Several fly-by-night operators have been found to be abusing the licence, despite the fact that the regulatory agency Food Safety and Regulations Authority of India (FSSAI) permits cloud kitchens to run more than one brand so long as they adhere to all other standards.
According to Zomato, “Some fly-by-night operators, who account for less than ~0.2 per cent of registered kitchens, misuse the flexibility in law by creating innumerable brands from the same kitchen. These brands have little to no differentiation in the product offering; instead, they confuse/cheat customers by creating a false perception of choice, while none of it actually exists.”
