To curb plastic use and decrease its carbon footprint, Zomato has taken a major step by requiring all customers to explicitly ‘opt-in’ for cutlery.

Deepinder Goyal, Zomato 's Co-founder and CEO, in a blog post, announced that if the customers need cutlery, they will now have to ask for it. He stated that the company has decided to change its default cutlery feature, and now customers will have to request cutlery, straws, and tissues if they need it.

The feature is being implemented to 50% of Zomato users and will be phased to all customers over the coming three to four weeks.

Goyal further underlined that the customers always had the option to skip cutlery while ordering, but not many customers used that option. He further added that they found out it wasn’t because the customers always wanted cutlery, but because they were not making an active choice.

The company surveyed thousands of its customers and about 90% of them stated that they did not need plastic cutlery with the orders, compelling it to change the default feature of cutlery.

The blog post also mentioned the ill effects of plastic on the environment. For instance, one plastic spoon decomposes for around 200-500 years. This small step of Zomato can help to save around 5000 kilos of plastic every day, which will be over 2 million kilos of plastic in a year.

Deepinder mentioned that customers should share the feedback using the post-delivery prompt on the app if a restaurant doesn’t send cutlery when you had asked for it or sends you cutlery when they weren’t supposed to. Zomato will pass the feedback to its restaurant partners to ensure greater adherence.

He concluded by mentioning that the customers should say no to cutlery if they can and assist in taking a small step towards making an environmentally conscious India.

Zomato has recently become India's first tech unicorn to go public.

Source Credits:

https://yourstory.com/2021/08/no-to-cutlery-deepinder-goyal-zomato-environment-climate/amp