Zomato founder says employee protest has nothing to do with religion

KOLKATA: In West Bengal, Howrah, the delivery workers of Zomato have staged a protest. The founder of the company had said, it has "nothing to do with food or religion or belief."

Zomato founder Deepinder Goyal, in an email urging staff to "ignore the noise and not get distracted," wrote: "This 'protest', confined to a handful of delivery partners, is limited to the Howrah area of Kolkata and not across West Bengal, as some wildly exaggerated reports make it out to be. The issue was primarily related to a recent rate card correction in that area, something which we routinely do."

A group of Zomato delivery workers in Howrah, which is located just outside Kolkata, have been on strike for a week and have said they will not be delivering food containing beef or pork.

"The company is not listening to our demands and forcing us to deliver beef and pork against our will. Hindus have a problem delivering beef while Muslims do not want to deliver pork. We are forced to deliver such things," Mausin Akhtar, an employee, told a source.

The protest was reportedly triggered by the buzz that a beef biryani outlet was being added to Zomato's list of restaurants in Howrah.

Zomato is fresh out of another recent controversy over a customer refusing to accept his food order from a Muslim rider. The company earned praise for its response: "Food has no religion, food is religion".