Feeding India, an award-winning non-profit organization, working towards solving the challenges of food wastage, hunger and malnutrition, is now a part of the Zomato family.

After witnessing the magnitude of food wastage at a wedding, Ankit Kawatra quit his job and founded Feeding India along with Srishti Jain in 2014. Since then, the team, with its five sustainable programs, has been working towards picking up excess food and redistributing it to people across hunger spots in 65+ cities in India. Till date, Feeding India has served 20 million meals through its 12 food recovery vans, 50+ community fridges and 8500+ volunteer network.

Speaking on the development, Deepinder Goyal, Founder & CEO, Zomato, said, “We have so far, taken environmental issues head-on with non-plastic initiatives like preventing the consumption of single-use plastic cutlery and promoting biodegradable packaging for food delivery. As we welcome Feeding India into the Zomato family, we will take this battle a notch higher by helping them build a system where excess food is directed to those in need. As a start, we aim to activate the restaurants on our platform into the Feeding India network and help them use technology to scale their volunteer operations. Feeding India will become a core part of our DNA and a significant step in our mission to ensure ‘better food for more people’. My many conversations with Ankit and Srishti have convinced me of our belief in a shared mission, and I am confident that together we will make a positive impact on food wastage and hunger.”

Zomato and Feeding India will together target every source of food wastage – farms, restaurants, hotels, supermarkets, corporates and events. The Zomato network will plug into Feeding India’s already existing models that focus on sustainably feeding the many who sleep hungry every night.

“Our ambitious aim is to end hunger and food wastage not just in India, but globally. I’m delighted to strengthen this movement with Zomato, given its vision of ‘better food for more people’ and our shared mission to combat hunger and food wastage. We see this collaboration as a pivotal step against food insecurity. I believe that restaurants can play a transformational role in powering hunger-free cities, and I look forward to working with the Zomato network in the future,” added Ankit Kawatra, Founder, Feeding India.

Feeding India not only donates excess food from various sources including events, airports, weddings, restaurants, corporates, etc. that would otherwise go to landfills but also cooks fresh food through innovative kitchen-models to support people, especially women and children, with limited access to food and nutrition. Over the last four years, the organisation has been recognized by the Queen of England, the United Nations World Food Program and even by the Prime Minister of India.

Zomato, as a Food Co., aims to solve for every step of the food value chain. Its initiatives like HyperPure and Hygiene Ratings are focused on the quality of food and transparency. With biodegradable packaging and pro-environment messaging, Zomato actively engages in behaviour change. Its reward points program, Zomato Piggybank, has helped raise funds equivalent to 22 lakh meals within six months of its launch.