Online Food Platforms Found To Be Functioning Without FSSAI License

India’s food safety regulator, the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) has recently found that some e-commerce platforms did not have the particulars on FSSAI license and/or registration of about 30-40 % of the restaurants that have been listed on their sites, according to reports. It has also been reported that some of the e-commerce platforms have not obtained license for themselves, it is said.

Two weeks notice

According to the conditions of FSSAI’s license, e-commerce platforms could only list restaurants that have the FSSAI’s license or registration. The regulator has given two weeks to these food aggregators to submit an action plan to de-list un-licensed or non-registered food businesses, according to the publichttps://hungryforever.net/fssai-issues-new-guidelines-e-commerce-food-operators/ation.

FSSAI has also advised these e-commerce platforms to promote food safety and hygiene amongst their listed food businesses by initiatives like training food safety supervisors, complying with Good Hygiene Practices (GHP), ensuring display of ‘Food Safety Boards’ on their premises, etc.

Sub-standard food served

It has also been decided to conduct an audit of IT platforms of these e-commerce food aggregators under the Food Safety and Standards Act, 2006 read with Food Safety (Licensing and Registration) Regulations, 2011, from the angle of compliances for food safety and hygiene.

It is to be noted that the FSSAI had directed leading e-commerce food service providers like Swiggy, Zomato, Foodpanda, UberEats and others to de-list non-FSSAI licensed food business from their platforms last month, after receiving complaints from customers of sub-standard food being served through such platforms. The aggregators were advised to display the FSSAI license numbers of restaurants on their platform along with their name and location.