‘In-principle agreement with Swiggy, Zomato on delivery’

New Delhi, Aug 30 (IANS) The National Restaurant Association of India (NRAI) has said that there is an in-principle agreement between the association and the two major online delivery aggregators, Zomato and Swiggy, to resolve the issues of the industry including deep discounts.

Anurag Katriar, Head of NRAI Mumbai Chapter said that Zomato which has been at the logger-heads with the association over the Zomato Gold programme in dine-in services, wanted to push through its Gold programme in the delivery services too which NRAI outrightly rejected during the meeting on Thursday.

"Yesterday, NRAI deliberated eight critical issues pertaining to the online delivery space with two key aggregators, Swiggy and Zomato. Both of them deduced issues of deep discounting, high and uneven commission charges, data masking and mandatory bundling of services which are crippling the restaurant industry. There is an in-principle agreement to resolve these issues within a specific timeline," Katriar elaborated.

He further said that broad contours of resolving each of the issues were chalked out and meetings with the two aggregators are likely to take place in the second week of September to update the reformation progress.

"In the back to back meetings, Swiggy's approach was fairly constructive. They understood all our viewpoints, and promised to come back with an actionable plan in the follow-up meeting," he said.

Katriar, however, said that the meeting with Zomato began on a "false note" as they stated their intention to introduce Zomato Gold on the delivery vertical as well. He added that it is an "entirely unacceptable proposition" to NRAI, due to the stated stance of #ZoGoisNoGo.

"On one hand, NRAI is determined to eradicate the epidemic of deep discounting for dine-in restaurants, whereas Zomato seems to just extend the same to the delivery business."

However, despite the abrupt beginning, other issues were discussed at length and Zomato would examine them at their end and revert in the follow-up meeting, Katriar added.

A Swiggy spokesperson said that the company and the NRAI are committed to creating value for both restaurants and consumers in a sustainable manner.

"We have had a constructive and collaborative dialogue and have agreed to reconvene on all the points that were discussed. Our goal remains to enable a win-win for our small, medium and large restaurant partners and the food delivery ecosystem," the Swiggy spokesperson added.