Comments
The Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) has directed leading food aggregators such as Zomato, Swiggy and UberEats to de-list all restaurants and eateries that do not have an FSSAI licence or registration.
It has also asked them to submit a report on the action taken to delist such eateries or food vendors listed on their platforms by July 31.
This move comes after the food safety regulator received a series of complaints about sub-standard food being supplied by restaurants and vendors listed on these delivery platforms.
10 delivery platforms
The regulator has ordered 10 such online food delivery firms to “debar” non-licensed or unregistered restaurants or eateries from their platforms immediately and to ensure compliance with the food safety rules and regulations. These firms are Zomato, Swiggy, and UberEats, Foodpanda, Faasos, FoodCloud, Foodmingo, JusFood, Box8 and LimeTray.
This is also significant as the food safety authority had operationalised guidelines for e-commerce food service platforms in February. Under these guidelines, it is mandatory for them to display the FSSAI licence number of the restaurants and eateries listed on their platform. In addition, they also need to have an agreement with these listed eateries regarding compliance with the FSS Act and Rules.
“It is time the online food platforms work harder to ensure compliance with this new legal framework,” FSSAI said in a statement on Friday.
FSSAI, however, noted with “serious concern” that the compliance to these guidelines was “patchy” and there were complaints of restaurants and hotels without FSSAI licence being listed and allowed to 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 release added.
Besides asking them to submit an action taken report, FSSAI also asked food aggregators to furnish details of the restaurants listed on their platforms, agreement signed with these eateries and mechanisms they have adopted to internally check if these restaurants have valid FSSAI licences.
Comments
COMMENT NOW
Comments
Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. They cannot be abusive or personal. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments.
We have migrated to a new commenting platform. If you are already a registered user of TheHindu Businessline and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. Users can access their older comments by logging into their accounts on Vuukle.