INDIA – The Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) has directed food firms Swiggy, UberEats, Zomato to remove unregistered restaurants from their platforms, believed to supply sub-standard food.
FSSAI has asked ten food firms to delist such restaurants that do not have a licence and submit report on the action taken along with details of restaurants registered on their platform by the end of this month, ET Retail has revealed.
In a statement, the regulator reiterated on the need to ensure compliance to the set standards especially for the online delivery platforms.
The notice which came after a series of complaints, was also directed to eateries belonging to Box8, Fasoos, FoodCloud, Foodmongo, Foodpanda, JusFood and LimeTray.
“The compliance to these guidelines was patchy and there were complaints of restaurants/hotels without FSSAI license being listed and allowed to offer/sell food products on e-commerce food service platforms.
There were also several complaints of sub-standard food being delivered to consumers through online market aggregators,” FSSAI noted.
Mandatory listing and compliance
FSSAI operationalized licencing and registration of food businesses based on food safety and standards regulations in February this year.
The amendment dictates a mandatory requirement for e-commerce companies in the food business to display licence number of listed firms on their platforms as well as ensure their partners comply with food safety rules and regulations.
Also e-commerce food business operators offering any pre-packed food were mandated to show clearly the ‘principal display panel’ of such pre-packed food except batch number/lot number, best before, expiry date, date of manufacturing or packing.
These efforts aim to regulate the online marketing companies involved in the selling of food items.
