Swiggy Shares Suggestions With NRAI For Resolving Issues With Restaurants

In a bid to resolve the long-standing stalemate between the National Restaurants Association of India (NRAI) and online food platforms, Swiggy has sent a detailed set of suggestions to NRAI. 

The earlier held talks between NRAI and Swiggy and Zomato in September, although claimed to be successful, failed to yield any solution on issues of deep discounting, uneven commissions and data masking. 

Earlier this month, the minister of commerce and industry Piyush Goyal has also taken upon himself to resolve the deep discounting issues amongst food aggregators such as Zomato and Swiggy.

Swiggy marketing vice president, TS Srivats told ET that the company is working with restaurant partners to drive more meals, not more discounts. “We have proposed a lot of resolutions around all the points they have raised and are continuing to talk to find a middle ground; we are working in a very positive way with each other,” he added. 

When asked about further details on the list of suggestions sent to NRAI, Srivats, citing confidentiality, declined to mention any. 

However, an NRAI official on the condition of anonymity told ET that suggestions shared by Swiggy include restricting the heavy discounting and sharing confidential data. 

Earlier, NRAI to both Zomato and Swiggy had highlighted eight issues faced by restaurants in a series of meetings. 

President of NRAI, Anurag Katriar said that there has been significant progress in talks with Swiggy and we are working out structural resolutions. The resolutions are being presently worked out between them and hence Katriar also declined to furnish the details.

#Logout Impacted Zomato, Not Swiggy

While Zomato has been on the radar of NRAI because of its Gold programme, Swiggy has been criticised by the restaurant association on deep discounting, lack of transparency, data masking, etc. 

Zomato’s standoff with restaurants and NRAI over its Gold programme also resulted in the #Logout campaign against the company in August 2019. The campaign, launched by around 300 restaurants, said that the Gold programme was encouraging discount hunters rather than loyal customers.

Since August, more than 2,000 restaurants have joined the #Logout campaign. The protests also gained national momentum earlier this month, as along with the Federation of Hotel & Restaurant Associations of India (FHRAI), several other associations joined the #Logout movement. Thane Hotel Association, Pune Restaurants & Hotel Association (PRAHA), Vadodara Food Entrepreneurs (VFE), etc. were the latest to join the campaign against Zomato. 

The #Logout campaign affected Zomato more adversely than its competitor Swiggy.  Srivats informed that none of its restaurant brands has logged out during the campaign against Zomato. 

“If restaurants didn’t see value in co-creation, why would they continue to be with us? We don’t believe in running a discount-heavy business; we are focused on category creation and affordability is one part of it,” Srivats added.