Zomato on Monday said it will not allow dishes made with analogue dairy on its platform, and has begun removing items that restaurant partners have themselves declared as containing such ingredients.
The Eternal-owned food delivery platform said it has adopted a zero-tolerance policy on the sale of analogue dishes and reserves the right to pull down any listing found in violation. Restaurants that remain non-compliant will be delisted, it said. However, the company did not provide a timeline for compliance or the number of restaurants that have been delisted so far.
Analogue paneer and cheese replace milk fat and milk solids with vegetable oils, starches and emulsifiers, producing a product that looks and behaves like dairy at a lower cost but carries less protein.
The platform has asked restaurant partners to switch to natural dairy, drop items containing analogue dairy from their menus where a switch is not immediately possible, and re-examine supplier labels and ingredient declarations to confirm what is actually going into the food listed on the app.
“At Zomato, our core mission is better food for more people, and that means safeguarding customer health and upholding clear standards for what’s listed and served by our restaurant partners,” Aditya Mangla, CEO, Zomato, said in a statement.
The move follows a tightening regulatory line on the ingredient. Chhattisgarh was the first state to prohibit analogue paneer, followed by Maharashtra, which issued a one-year ban on August 5 after its FDA found 109 of 308 samples collected between April 2025 and March 2026 non-compliant, 30 of them unsafe. Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Punjab and Karnataka have since issued similar prohibitions.
FSSAI’s western region had in April directed food businesses to stop selling cheese analogue as paneer and to disclose its use on menus, invoices and display boards. FSSAI CEO Rajit Punhani has reportedly said a nationwide prohibition is under consideration, though the regulator has made no formal announcement.
Scrutiny of the ingredient intensified after an X user flagged in October that Zomato Hyperpure, Eternal’s restaurant supply arm, was listing analogue paneer as suitable for tikka and gravy dishes.
The announcement also comes as quick commerce and food delivery platforms face a widening enforcement drive across Maharashtra and Karnataka, with multiple dark store licences suspended over unhygienic conditions.