FSSAI To Meet Ecommerce Execs Over Sale Of Near-Expiry Foods

SUMMARY

To be attended by representatives of Blinkit, Zepto and Swiggy, the meeting will see discussion on “concerns” related to sale of near-expiry packaged food items

FSSAI also plans to convene a meeting of state food safety commissioners this week, and issue directions to ramp up the scrutiny of ecommerce and quick commerce platforms

Last month, Telangana food safety officials raised a warehouse of Zomato-owned Hyperpure in Hyderabad and found 18 kgs of button mushrooms labelled with a “future packing date”

Amid the ongoing controversy over food safety concerns at a Zomato warehouse, the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) reportedly plans to call a meeting with representatives of major quick commerce platforms within the next 10 days.

Sources told NDTV Profit that the executives from the likes of Zomato-owned Blinkit, Swiggy Instamart, Zepto, among others will participate in the meeting.

As per the report, the agenda of this meeting will be to address “serious concerns” related to sale of packaged food items, which are nearing their expiry dates, on these quick commerce platforms.

Besides, the regulator also reportedly plans to convene a meeting of state food safety commissioners this week. Sources told NDTV Profit that FSSAI plans to instruct them to ramp up the scrutiny of ecommerce and quick commerce platforms to prevent the sale of ‘near-expiry’ products.

As part of the crackdown, the regulator plans to direct food safety commissioners to conduct surprise checks at warehouses and dark stores of online marketplaces to ensure that products, with less than 30% shelf-life remaining, are not stocked.

It is pertinent to note that Food Safety and Standards Amendment Regulations, 2020 mandate online platforms to only list food items that have a minimum shelf life of 30%, or at least 45 days, remaining for sale.

This comes nearly a week after Telangana food safety officials on October 29 raided a warehouse of Zomato-owned B2B supplies platform Hyperpure in Hyderabad and found 18 kgs of button mushrooms labelled with a “future packing date” of October 30.

The aftermath saw Zomato cofounder and CEO Deepinder Goyal issue a public statement, where he blamed the vendor for the mistake. He also claimed that the items, in question, had already been flagged and rejected by Zomato’s warehouse team during their quality control checks.

The meeting also comes close on the heels of industry body All India Consumer Products Distributors Federation (AICPDF) appealing to the Centre to crack the whip on ecommerce and quick commerce platforms for not making mandatory disclosures, such as expiry and best before date for grocery and other daily essentials.

Calling for stricter norms, the body also alleged that the packaged goods industry was exploiting quick commerce platforms to push unsold stocks.

However, this is not the first time that these companies have landed in regulatory hot waters. Ecommerce giants Flipkart and Amazon are already under the radar of the Competition Commission of India (CCI) for flouting antitrust regulations while quick commerce have been facing the ire of regulators for violating disclosure norms.