Zomato plans to manually check on cloud kitchens hosting more than 10 brands

Food aggregator Zomato on Friday said it will carry out physical inspection of cloud kitchens which run more than 10 brands out of a single location in a bid to curb malpractices by operators.
 

“Certain cloud kitchen operations create and operate multiple brands that are serviced from the same kitchen. When done thoughtfully and professionally, it brings innovative and high-quality experiences to customers at relatively lower prices as it creates operational and cost efficiencies in the kitchen,” shared Zomato’s Mohit Gupta in a Blog post.

In the recent past, the statutory body – Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) has also stated that cloud kitchen entities are free to operate multiple brands on a single FSSAI license (usually unique to a kitchen), read the post.

However, there are some exceptions to this. Such as some fly-by-night operators, who account for less than ~0.2% of registered kitchens, misuse this 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. Most of the brands run by these operators also have terrible reviews and ratings on our platform. Such operators tarnish the reputation of the restaurant industry as a whole, hurting all of us in more ways than one, it added.

Going forward, Zomato is planning to manually check any physical location which runs more than 10 brands out of a single location. “While there is no exact science to the right number of brands, we believe that even the most organised outlets in the industry don’t see operational benefits and customer trust in operating too many brands from a single kitchen,” shared Gupta.

The blog post also shared that the company will whitelist the restaurant partners that provide a great experience other than the operators mentioned above from this manual check so that they don’t face delays while expanding the scope of their businesses.

Additionally, as the Indian customer is seeking more information about the origin of their food, they will also showcase the information of multiple brands linked to a kitchen on the restaurant’s page on Zomato, in the spirit of transparency.