Zomato, the popular food delivery platform, found itself in hot water recently after netizens flagged a peculiar trend of “one-dish” restaurants with bizarrely named menu items like “Naughty Strawberry” and “Merry Berry.”
The uproar, which began with a Reddit post exposing suspicious outlets in Chandigarh’s Nayagaon, quickly gained traction on social media, raising concerns about potential loopholes in Zomato’s monitoring system.
Zomato’s Response to the Controversy
Zomato wasted no time addressing the concerns. Taking to X (formerly Twitter), the company assured users that it had delisted all flagged outlets and expanded its investigation to include other limited-menu restaurants. Zomato’s post read:
Zomato explained that while all restaurants on its platform are required to possess a valid FSSAI license and follow strict guidelines prohibiting the sale of alcohol, tobacco, and other restricted items, some outlets exploited the system by using generic food names to bypass checks. For example, items like “Naughty Strawberry” and “Citrus Punch” raised eyebrows due to their vague descriptions and unusually high prices.
The company admitted the breach but reassured customers that its fraud detection measures have now been strengthened to prevent similar incidents.
Zomato, the popular food delivery platform, found itself in hot water recently after netizens flagged a peculiar trend of “one-dish” restaurants with bizarrely named menu items like “Naughty Strawberry” and “Merry Berry.” The uproar, which began with a Reddit post exposing suspicious outlets in Chandigarh’s Nayagaon, quickly gained traction on social media, raising concerns about potential loopholes in Zomato’s monitoring system.
Zomato replies to the Controversy
Zomato wasted no time addressing the concerns. Taking to X (formerly Twitter), the company assured users that it had delisted all flagged outlets and expanded its investigation to include other limited-menu restaurants. Zomato’s post read:
We have noticed social media conversations around single-dish restaurants listed on Zomato. We have identified all such restaurants that were potentially fraudulent and have delisted them from our platform. To solve this more comprehensively, we have also investigated all other restaurants which have a very limited menu on Zomato and might have listed prohibited items or worked around a way to list prohibited items. As per our policy, all restaurants listed on Zomato need to have a FSSAI license and we also actively block items such as alcohol, cigarettes/cigars/vapes from being listed on our platform. However, the restaurants highlighted were able to game our checks by using generic food names such as, ‘Naughty strawberry’, ‘Merry Berry’. We have further strengthened our fraud checks to proactively identify such cases to avoid similar incidents in the future.
Zomato explained that while all restaurants on its platform are required to possess a valid FSSAI license and follow strict guidelines prohibiting the sale of alcohol, tobacco, and other restricted items, some outlets exploited the system by using generic food names to bypass checks. For example, items like “Naughty Strawberry” and “Citrus Punch” raised eyebrows due to their vague descriptions and unusually high prices.
The company admitted the breach but reassured customers that its fraud detection measures have now been strengthened to prevent similar incidents.