In a bid to cut plastic use, food tech giant Zomato has decided to change one of its default settings, which delivered cutleries along with the food ordered. As per a blog on Zomato's official website, "customers will now have to explicitly request for cutlery, tissues, and straws, if they need it. This is now an 'opt-in' instead of an 'opt-out'." This step comes after a survey conducted by Zomato, where almost 90 percent of the customers said that they didn't "really need" any plastic cutlery with their orders. "Keeping this in mind, we decided to change the default mode for cutlery," the blog read.
Zomato's founder Deepinder Goyal also took to his Twitter handle to further explain the reason to take such initiative. "This small change can help save up to 5,000 kilos of plastic in a day. If you can, please say no to cutlery and do your bit," one of his Tweets (in this in regard) read.
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Zomato made the announcement on August 30, 2021 (on Monday) and in no time the news took internet by storm. And in no time, people started sharing their feedbacks and reaction to this initiative. While some applauded it, others shared "constructive" feedbacks on how to make this new "setting" better and customer friendly.
One of the users wrote, "Hi, please also think of the plastic bowls used to fill food. There are perishable containers made from plant residues, they are food safe and can help us all in discarding plastic for food."
Zomato was prompt enough to reply to it, saying, "Hi there. We're also as concerned about the environment as you are but we leave the choice to our customers, basis their availability of utensils. However, we have noted down your constructive feedback and will work around this to come up with better solutions."
"Neat. There should be a location-specific configuration. Always add cutlery for office address, Never for home address," read another comment.
A third tweet read, "Great move. Best way to increase adoption is offer the cost savings, if any, to customers or a NGO/charity of their choice."
What do you think of this initiative by Zomato? Let us know in the comments below.