Zomato to inspect restaurants hosting more than 10 brands from the same kitchen

Food Aggregator Zomato said on Friday that it will carry out a physical inspection of cloud kitchens that run more than 10 brands from a single location.

Talking about the need for a cloud kitchen, Zomato said, "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."

The company was also quick to point out that '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'

However, Zomato says there are some 'fly-by-night operators' , which account for less than 0.2% of kitchens and most of which have 'terrible reviews' on the platform, that are using this flexibility in the law.

The food aggregator further added, "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"

Zomato says it is going to work with the National Restaurants Authority of India(NRAI) and restaurant partners in formulating the right approach to deal with such kind of practices.

In the meantime, however, Zomato said, "We are going 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"

Zomato says it is also going to enlist multiple brands running from the same kitchen on its restaurant's page.

The company says it will whitelist restaurants that provide a great experience other than the restaurants that would face a physical check. It says if a restaurant having more than 10 brands from a single premise thinks they serve a very differentiated product, they could also reach out to the food aggregator for whitelisting.

The action by Zomato comes after a viral Twitter thread that claimed more than 200 kitchens were run from a single location in Bangalore.