‘Thank you Deepinder Goyal’: Man thinks Zomato delivery guy was eating ‘someone’s food’. Here’s what happened next

Social activist and influencer Kiran Verma, in a Facebook post on March 14, highlighted a “sweet unethical” incident with a Zomato delivery partner when he thought that the person was eating someone else's food amid the festivities of Holi 2025.

In his Facebook post, Verma thanked Zomato and its Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Deepinder Goyal, for a unique instance in which a delivery partner had his lunch with the customers' order. 

What happened to the food order?

In his post, Verma said that when he was parking his car in Noida, he saw a biker eating a meal sitting on his bike. As Verma wanted to park his car at the bike's spot, due to the absence of another parking place, he decided to wait for the rider to finish his meal.

After clicking a photo of the delivery partner, thinking that he may be eating someone else's ordered food, Verma decided to go talk to the Zomato partner.

“I went close to him and asked how much time is it going to take as I will park my car accordingly,” mentioned Verma in his post, to which the delivery person responded, “Just a few minutes, Sir.” 

According to Verma's post, the delivery agent sounded like an “educated guy”, and after a brief exchange of names, he asked the agent about the reason behind eating lunch at nearly 5 p.m. on Holi.

“Sir I picked up this order at around 2 pm and I went to deliver the food but nobody turned up to receive the order,” said the delivery executive, according to the Facebook post.

Why was Zomato delivery agent eating the food?

After not being able to deliver the food order to the customer, Zomato allegedly asked the delivery executive to mark the order as “delivered” in an attempt to reduce further costs to the company on individual orders.

The post also mentioned that if the order is not delivered, the delivery executive also does not get paid unless the product or order is marked as delivered. 

After marking the food as “delivered” the executive can then officially do whatever they want with the food order.

“It may sound unethical or wrong, but it is good practice, because that’s how delivery partners save little money on their food and wastage can be controlled,” said Verma in his post.

Incentives to Zomato riders

Highlighting the reason behind the late lunch, Vishal (name changed), the delivery executive, said that during festivals, they get incentives to deliver more orders, and the afternoon was a peak time for the food orders on Holi 2025.

“Due to Holi, we get incentives to deliver more orders and as afternoon was a peak time. I just kept delivering orders rather lunch,” said the delivery executive. 

According to the social media post, the delivery executive gets ₹10 to 25 per order and hardly makes ₹20,000 to ₹25,000 a month from delivering food to people.

“His father is small farmer in Eastern UP and he has 2 younger siblings (both studying). He is a graduate and couldn’t find suitable job for himself, that’s why he had this easy option only. The whole family depends on his earning, and that’s why food like this is nothing less than saving or lifeline to him,” said Verma in his post.

Right or wrong?

Without coming up with a conclusion, Kiran Verma said that he doesn't know whether this marking “delivered” is the right or wrong move and also whether or not giving orders to delivery guys makes economic sense. 

However, Verma, in his post, thanked Zomato CEO Deepinder Goyal for this “impactful” move, which is helping millions of delivery executives in India and helping them in thousands of different ways.

“I request you all not to judge someone like I did for Vishal, when they are having such food (I am still feeling guilty as I also judged him at first),” he said.

Drawing a parallel, Verma hoped that people stay close to their families, unlike the millions of gig workers in the nation who are supporting others to create special moments into memories.