Restaurateurs seek policy for online food services

Bangladesh Restaurant Owners Association has demanded framing a policy on online food delivery services as food e-commerce companies under food sharing services take 35 to 40 per cent commission for delivering the food.

They said that this excess commission is unethical and threatening for the restaurant businesses.

Leaders of the association raised the demands in a meeting with the commerce ministry at its conference room last Sunday. Earlier, they submitted a letter to the commerce minister to bring the food e-commerce delivery services under a specific policy.

The association general secretary Imran Hossain said that restaurants owners are doing their businesses maintaining the health safety rules directed by the government, but the e-commerce delivery services are not following any rules and taking 33-40 per cent commission.

Otherwise, they protract the time of payment 2 to 3 months and cut money on different excuses, the restaurateurs said.

“These are leaving a negative impact on the restaurants business. In this situation we demand fixing of 10 per cent commission for the e-commerce delivery services like the other countries in the world,” he said.

A commerce ministry source said that at present e-commerce businesses are running under the National Digital Commerce Policy 2018 and Digital Commerce Operation Guidelines. But there is no specific policy regarding online delivery services.

Director General of central digital commerce cell and additional secretary of commerce ministry, Md Hafizur Rahaman told The Business Post, “To bring the online service under a the specific policy is underway.’’

“E-commerce companies are not paying the restaurants timely although they are supposed to make the payment within 7 to 15 days as per the contract. In this case, they would face trial under contract law. But none sought remedy to violation of the law. Steps will be taken to solve these issues,’’ he added.

Food delivery companies claimed that the allegations of taking 35 to 40 per cent commission were not valid. They insisted that they take average 20 to 25 per cent commission.

When approached, the communication department of foodpanda said, “There is no chance to delay payment by 2 to 3 months. Our partner restaurants cannot bring any allegation against us. We are paying timely. The amount of commissions may vary from restaurant to restaurant.”

There are 2,50,000 restaurants across the country and 60,000 of them are members of the Bangladesh Restaurant Owners Association. As the restaurants are suffering from Covid-19 fallouts, they depended on third-party food-delivery services for survival.