Deepinder Goyal: From Delivering Food To Delivering Smiles

Today, Humans have become creatures of comfort. We seek ease and comfort in every aspect of life, especially when it comes to everyday tasks like going out to eat your comfort food from your favourite restaurant. Zomato emerged as a result of this human need for comfort. 

Deepinder Goyal, who grew up in a middle-class family, graduated from the prestigious Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi, in 2005 with a degree in Mathematics and Computing. His passion for food inspired him to create a venture that would make it easier for people to order their meals through an app, whether it’s for breakfast, lunch, or dinner.

Deepinder Goyal: Building Zomato

During his corporate career at Bain’s, Deepinder Goyal would pin menus on the office board for his colleagues’ easy access.

Deepinder and his colleague Pankaj, who both worked at Bain and Company, noticed that they had to stand in long queues to place their food orders. They decided to create a website that would allow employees at Bain to order food using the company intranet, which proved to be a huge success, receiving heavy traffic. 

The founders of Zomato saw the potential in this idea and recognised that it could revolutionise the food tech industry.

After he founded Zomato, he received positive responses and increased interest, which led him to add more restaurants to the list. 

Today, Zomato is valued at $15 billion and has acquired many smaller startups in India and abroad, with the most significant one being Blinkit, which is an online platform for home delivery of groceries.

Beyond the Arena: Feeding & Educating India

When the COVID pandemic hit the world, Mr Goyal donated 700 crore worth of stocks to Zomato Future Foundation in order to finance the education of the children of his delivery partners. Recently, he announced the building of ‘Rest Points’, infrastructure for the gig economy workers, not just for Zomato, but all companies. 

Child malnutrition is a widespread problem in India, which is worsened by the cycle of poverty. The primary causes of high child mortality rates in the country are poor maternal health and inadequate nutrition during the first few years of a child’s life. According to the 2021 National Family Health Survey (NFHS)-5 India report, one in every three children is underweight.

Zomato is involved with the Feeding India Campaign, a non-profit organisation that seeks to eradicate hunger and reduce malnutrition among the underserved communities of India.

Feeding India works with on-ground non-profit organisations working on education and child/maternal malnutrition by providing regular meals to people from these downtrodden communities.

Feeding India’s Poshan to Pathshala campaign supports low-income schools by providing daily meals to ensure children receive proper nutrition for their holistic development.

The founder has a knack for social service which led him to partner with Feeding India to fill the stomachs of the underprivileged who bear the brunt of malnutrition and need a helping hand to meet their daily nutritional needs.

Mr Goyal definitely deserves praise for his efforts at moving beyond his professional arena and stepping into social service by crossing his domain of functioning. Indeed he has moved from delivering food to delivering smiles.

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