During raid at Zomato Hyperpure warehouse, Hyderabad officials find items with 'future date of packing'

This was at Zomato's Hyperpure warehouse (Zomato owns quick commerce platform BlinkIt) in Kukatpally, Hyderabad, known as an FBO (Food Business Operator).

Food safety officials in Hyderabad during an inspection at a Zomato warehouse, found 18 kilos of button mushrooms being labelled as packed on October 30, 2024, when the check was done on October 29, according to an NDTV report.

The logo of Indian food delivery company Zomato is seen on its app on a mobile phone displayed in front of its company website in this illustration picture taken July 14, 2021. (Florence Lo/Reuters)

This was at Zomato's Hyperpure warehouse located in Kukatpally, Hyderabad. The warehouse is known as an FBO (Food Business Operator) operating with a state license. FBOs supply fruits, vegetables, meat, seafood, gourmet foods, packaging, consumables, kitchen equipment, etc, to hotels, restaurants, and caterers.

A "future date of packing" like this is a food safety violation and this comes amid the officials uncovering serious food safety issues ahead of Diwali at sweet shops, a momo outlet, and shawarma units in certain places after health complaints.

The officials even found house flies inside the warehouse and noted it didn't have a proper insect-proof screen with few of the food handlers not wearing hair caps and aprons.

This is despite the warehouse having its license, medical fitness certificates for food handlers, and pest control records.

Zomato CEO Deepinder Goyal responded to the incident saying the packets in question had already been identified by the warehouse team and were rejected during an inward quality check.

“I am not sure why just these small number of mushroom packets worth ₹7,200 (out of the crores of inventory in the warehouse), which were never going to make it to customers, are being talked about the media, while we got an A+ rating,” he said in a post on X.

All these findings come after the task force in June this year, raided a Blinkit warehouse (Zomato owns quick commerce platform BlinkIt) at Devar Yamjal in the Medchal Malkajgiri District near Hyderabad, finding unhygienic premises, expired items, and food that was possibly infested, among several other issues.

Another NDTV report on this matter quoted Blinkit as saying in response, “We take safety and hygiene standards very seriously. We are closely working with our warehouse partner and the Food Safety Department to implement corrective actions from the findings.”