The National Restaurant Association of India (NRAI) on Tuesday said the Competition Commission of India’s decision to probe into food aggregators’ conduct will pave the way for a level-playing field for all stakeholders in the ecosystem.

On Monday, CCI ordered an investigation into the conduct of Zomato and Swiggy after NRAI had approached the competition watchdog against the allegedly “anti-competitive” practices of the food aggregators .

“We are very happy that the CCI saw merits in our submission which highlighted the restaurant industry’s concerns. It may be noted that the NRAI has been engaging with both the aggregators and the concerned Government authorities in the past few years to resolve existing pain points of the Industry vis-à-vis operations of the aggregators,” the restaurant industry body said.

Pain points

“These pain points were acutely amplified during the pandemic when restaurants and cloud kitchens were struggling for survival by way of their increased dependence on these aggregators. In the absence of a sustainable solution, the NRAI filed information with CCI on July 1, 2021 highlighting the concerns and issues related to the functioning of food aggregator platforms which should ideally operate as a neutral market place,” NRAI added.

Also read
@CCI_India

CCI orders probe on Zomato, Swiggy for ‘anti-competitive practices’

The industry body has raised concerns regarding practices such as deep discounting, data masking and violation of platform neutrality by the food aggregator platforms .

CCI’s investigation will look at issues such as price-parity agreements and whether preferential treatment accorded to the restaurant partners in which these platforms have an equity or revenue interest can create barriers in level-playing field.

“NRAI looks forward to a positive outcome of this investigation which will pave way towards providing a level playing field for all stakeholders in the ecosystem,” it added.

comment COMMENT NOW