Donations for 55,000 meals @50 each were received in only 12 hours yesterday, it is matching every donation at 1:1.

In a widely applauded CSR move to the ongoing flood situation in Chennai, Zomato has raised commitments for 110,000 meals to be distributed free to those affected by the floods. This figure was reached by Zomato matching each meal donation of INR 50/- with an identical contribution from itself.

It set-up a dedicated Chennai Floods donation page. 55,000 meals were donated by the general public in the 12 hours the campaign was active, till the company had to temporarily pause it to focus on the delivery of these meals. For this, it has setup a relay point where local delivery partners Chennai Volunteers, Robin Hood Army, Delhivery and other well wishers collected the meals for distribution across the city.

“We intend to restart the donation drive ASAP once we ensure supply and distribution of the existing 110,000 meals are in place,” said Pramod Rao, SVP, growth, Zomato.

The local restaurants are pitching in to support this effort. Each is doing its own bit with general guidelines on meal type and delivery being worked out. Some of the participating restaurants are Adyar Ananda Bhavan, Prems Graama Bhojanam, Kolapasi, Dindigul Thalappakati, Nawab Sheikh Biryani and Meat and Eat.

Meanwhile, Mast Kalandar has agreed to take on the bulk of the burden with a commitment to prepare 90,000 meals.

If you wish to contribute as a restaurateur, please contact cfr@zomato.com.

The company, recently in the news for the wrong reasons, received wide support online, especially on Twitter. A tweet by Deepinder Goyal, co-founder & CEO received over a thousand retweets and likes.