A red-green Zomato crew split could’ve driven a wedge in society
Food packaging usually has either a green or red marker to identify its contents as vegetarian or otherwise. This helps those who are sensitive about what they eat ensure they don’t end up consuming anything taboo by accident. So, a vegetarian person can instantly identify a box that may have non-veg food even without opening it.
These colour codes are well established in India and food-delivery services use such labels too. That’s great. Our dietary preferences are a matter of individual choice, after all, and it makes sense for marketers to ease how we exercise our will.
Yet, if we extend the logic of colour codes to drape delivery agents and their cargo in either green or red, we could face a profiling problem that may defeat the very idea of free choice. Food-delivery major Zomato found this out the hard way. On Wednesday, CEO Deepinder Goyal reversed a decision to segregate its delivery crew on the basis of what food they deliver.
Like before, all its agents will be dressed in red. Announced at the start of this week, Zomato’s original proposal appealed to pure vegetarians with a new service that promised end-to-end handling of food preparation and delivery—all the way from kitchens to the customer’s doorstep—by a dedicated staff. This way, there would be no risk of a mix-up, not even of a non-veg package’s odour left clinging to a vegetarian pack.
To emphasize the integrity of this new bifurcation, Zomato decided to split the high-profile get-up of its delivery agents into green and red. While the pure-veg service was welcomed (and is being rolled out as planned), the idea of colour-identified teams sparked an uproar on social media. It was pointed out that such open segregation would end the public anonymity of
. Read more on livemint.com
