The Telangana Food Safety Department carried out inspections at 75 warehouses linked to major e-commerce platforms and local suppliers. Following the inspection, it issued 32 improvement notices for safety lapses. The officials have also seized thousands of expired or improperly labelled food products and discarded several kilograms of stale or rotten items. Samples were also collected for further testing.

‘76 kg of expired articles, misleading labels’

The department said that the surprise inspection covered warehouses associated with Zepto, Reliance JioMart, Blinkit, BigBasket, Zomato, Swiggy, Flipkart, Amazon, and various local units.

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“A special drive on warehouses of e-commerce platforms covering Zepto, RelianceJioMart, Blinkit, BigBasket, Zomato, Swiggy, Flipkart, Amazon and local units was conducted,” the Commissioner of Food Safety, Telangana, wrote on X. 

In the next few lines, it provided details of the inspection. “75 warehouses visited, 98 enforcement and 124 surveillance samples lifted. Seizures: 1,903 units of expired food or food articles, either misbranded or having misleading labels. Discards: 76 kg of expired articles, stale food, rotten vegetables.”

Following the inspections, 32 improvement notices were issued to the facilities that failed to meet food safety standards.

Check out pictures from the warehouses in Telangana below:

This is not the first time that the food safety department has conducted inspections. In the first week of November, the department inspected 12 outlets located along the highways in the state and suspended the license of one of them. 

“CFS Telangana taskforce in a major enforcement drive inspected 12 highway food outlets along NH-65 (Hyderabad-Vijayawada), NH-163 (Warangal-Hyderabad) & NH-44 (Kurnool-Hyderabad) covering Sangareddy, Warangal & Jogulamba Gadwal districts,” it wrote on X (formerly Twitter). 

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Severe food safety violations were observed at one outlet, including unhygienic kitchens, rodent infestation, improperly stored food, clogged drains, and suspected use of synthetic colours. The hotel’s license was suspended by the officials. 

“Action taken against The Hotel NH-9 (The Palace Hotel): License suspended under the Food Safety & Standards Act, 2006. 107.5 kg of unsafe food (prawns, fish, chicken, paneer, gobi fry) was discarded on the spot. The FBO shall remain closed until issuance of final orders by the competent authority,” it stated. 

It added, “Other outlets, including Taj Palace Hotel, Athidhi 44 Drive-In, Lepakshi Restaurants in NH-44, Minerva, Vivera, Utsav & Orissa Dhaba in NH-65 found with poor hygiene, unlabeled food, expired ingredients & reuse of cooking oil. 7 samples lifted, and 8 improvement notices issued.”