Industry unites against FSAs

Multiple hotels and F&B associations, including FHRAI and NRAI, have joined forces to participate in the #Logout movement to protest against deep discounting and other predatory policies employed by Food Service Aggregators (FSAs) in the country.

Hazel Jain

Industry associations around the country have come together to protest against unfair practices by multiple Food Service Aggregators (FSAs) that refuse to cooperate with them. Among them are the Federation of Hotel & Restaurant Associations of India (FHRAI) that comprises HRANI, HRAWI, SIHRA and HRAEI; National Restaurant Association of India (NRAI), Indian Hotel & Restaurant Association (AHAR), Thane Hotel Association, Pune Restaurants & Hotel Association (PRAHA), Nainital Hotels’ & Restaurants Association (NHRA), and Vadodara Food Entrepreneurs (VFE).

All the above associations have extended their wholehearted support to the #Logout movement initiated by NRAI in August 2019. They collectively want to send out a strong message to FSAs about their highly-detrimental and predatory trade practices. Several city-based and affiliated bodies joining the campaign strongly indicate that the pain is being felt across the entire industry and everyone is aligned together.

Gurbaxish Singh Kohli, President, Hotel and Restaurant Association of Western India (HRAWI) & Vice President, FHRAI, says, “We recognise the need for peaceful co-existence of the hotel and restaurant industry with e-commerce aggregators. But we are also very clear that the terms of engagement between the two sides have to be equal at all times, that no one can usurp the role of the other, and aggregators cannot dominate the industry or conduct business in a manner that is detrimental to the industry’s growth or profits.” The main team leading this movement is in constant dialogue with them. They will soon organise a meeting between the two parties at the earliest possible date.

Anurag Katriar, President, NRAI, adds, “This group also unanimously agreed that Zomato Gold is an extremely detrimental product for the industry and strongly opposes the same. It is clothed in such a manner that is misleads a few gullible members into disastrous consequences. “These aggregators have to recognise that their role is to merely aggregate services of the industry. They do not represent the hotel and food service industry,” adds Kohli.

Core complaints

• Deep discounting
• Lopsided and oppressive contracts with arbitrary rule changes
• High commissions, high penalties and unilateral changes to them
• Delayed payments and unreasonable penalties
• Unreasonable additional charges
• Unethical practices such as showing a restaurant closed when riders are unavailable
• Private labels
• Forced use of delivery services
• Inconsistency in search algorithms on App
• lmposed certification
• Data masking of restaurants’ customers from them
• Breach of promise; Zomato Gold is a classic example
• Surreptitious attempts to collect customer data through free Wi-Fi,