NEW DELHI: Food aggregator platform Swiggy has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Robin Hood Army, an NGO focused on fighting hunger through surplus food distribution. The partnership aims to tackle food wastage and hunger, to distribute 50 million meals by 2030.
 
At the launch event, Rohit Kapoor, Chief Executive Officer of Food Marketplace at Swiggy, said, "Swiggy Serves is a small initiative to begin with, but we expect it to create a larger impact. The restaurant partners were themselves excited to jump on board and join the initiative."

Out of all the restaurants operating in the country, Swiggy has partnered with over 80 percent of them, Kapoor added.

With plans for expansion, Swiggy has kickstarted the partnership with a few restaurant partners such as Dana Choga Restaurants, Biryani by Kilo, Dosa Anna, Charcoal Eats, Urban Tandoor, and Foodies Cart, among others.
 
Neel Ghose, the founder of Robin Hood Army, said, "This is one of our biggest partnerships. We are a zero-fund, volunteer-driven organisation, and we have distributed nearly 153 million meals to date. With Swiggy's partnership, we can create an impact and touch more lives."

Ghose shared that while the MoU was signed today, the Swiggy Serves programme actually began in December 2024.
 
Commending the partnership with Swiggy, Veer Anukul Chandhok, Chief Executive Officer of Dana Choga Restaurants, said, "With around 80 outlets, one of the major challenges we face is predicting the accuracy of demand. There is a margin of error, which leads to food wastage."

 Mentioning that food waste is a challenge, Kaushik Roy, founder of Biryani by Kilo, said, "Waste happens in two places: one at the restaurants and at the consumer's end when they sometimes overorder. This partnership will help address the challenge."
 
In October 2024, Swiggy collaborated with the makers of the film Singham Again to deliver 11,000 vada pavs to children from schools supported by the Robin Hood Army, setting a Guinness World Record.
 
Swiggy's rival Zomato introduced a feature on its app to minimise food wastage in November 2024. The feature, named Food Rescue, shows cancelled orders on the app of nearby users who can purchase them at a discounted price. According to Zomato, around 4 lakh food orders are cancelled every month on their way to customers.

 Earlier, in 2019, Zomato acquired a non-profit organisation, Feeding India, with a mission to eradicate hunger and malnutrition in India. Under its Daily Feeding Program, it provides 200,000 meals per day to underserved individuals across 39 cities, as per its latest Environmental, Social, and Governance report.