The National Restaurant Association of India is opposed to online food delivery platforms having exclusive tie ups, “arm twisting, promoting their own brands, using their own (search) algorithms,” reports Financial Express. The NRAI said that it would like a code of conduct to be implemented to deal with deep discounts, the ‘dumping of capital’ and perpetually on-sale items influencing market forces. MediaNama has reached out to the NRAI, Zomato, Swiggy, Foodpanda, and UberEATS and will update this when we hear from them. The report states that the NRAI wrote to the DIPP, now renamed the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT), asking if online food delivery companies fell under the new FDI in ecommerce policy. The association is of the belief that they do, but had not defined themselves as marketplace or inventory based companies, and that some of them weren’t registered with FSSAI either. “If food aggregators start to flex their muscles because of the capital they have, then we need a code of conduct… If we can have a code between the aggregators and the association, we would be happy,” NRAI president Rahul Singh told FE. The NRAI is contemplating going to the CCI with this. Last month, the NRAI met with online food delivery companies, where it asked whether deep discounting was turning users into discount addicts and voiced its concerns. The association represents restaurants like Smoke House Deli, The Big Chill Cafe, The Bombay Canteen, Punjab Grill, Burger King, ABC Farms, Baskin Robbins,…
