Due to the current controversy about food safety at a Zomato warehouse, the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) plans to meet with representatives of major quick commerce platforms within the next 10 days.
Blinkit, Swiggy Instamart, Zepto and other to join discussion
According to NDTV Profit, executives from Blinkit, Swiggy Instamart, Zepto, and other companies will join the meeting. The report says that the meeting’s agenda is to address “serious concerns” about the sale of nearly expired packaged food items on these quick commerce services.
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Furthermore, the authority also intends to conduct a gathering for state food safety commissioners during this week. As these sources that have been quoted by NDTV Profit confirm, FSSAI wants to inform them regarding the need to step up the inspections of the ecommerce and quick commerce sectors in an effort to curb the distribution of very old stocks.
In this regard, the food safety commissioner shall also be instructed to carry out random inspections in the instance where these warehouses and/or dark stores of e-commerce firms do not have any stock which is less than 30% in shelf life.
FSSAI mandates 45-day shelf life for quick commerce sales
Notably, the Food Safety and Standards Amendment Regulations, 2020 require online platforms to only list food items with at least 30% shelf life remaining, or at least 45 days before expiration. This follows an October 29 raid by Telangana food safety officials at a Zomato-owned Hyperpure warehouse in Hyderabad, where they found 18 kg of button mushrooms labelled with a future packing date of October 30.
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Afterwards, Zomato’s cofounder and CEO, Deepinder Goyal, made a public statement blaming the vendor for the mistake. He also said that Zomato’s warehouse team had already identified and rejected the items during their quality control checks.
Additionally, the meeting follows an appeal by the All India Consumer Products Distributors Federation (AICPDF) to the Centre, urging action against ecommerce and quick commerce platforms for not making mandatory disclosures like expiry and best before dates for groceries and other daily essentials.
Moving forward, the body is calling for stricter rules and accuses the packaged goods industry of using quick commerce platforms to sell unsold stocks. This isn’t the first time these companies have faced regulatory issues. Ecommerce giants Flipkart and Amazon are already under the Competition Commission of India’s (CCI) scrutiny for violating antitrust regulations, while quick commerce platforms have been criticised for not following disclosure norms.
