Zomato and Swiggy were among the 10 e-commerce businesses to whom the directive was issued. The others were Box8, Faasos, FoodCloud, Foodmingo, Foodpanda, JusFood, LimeTray and UberEats.
Adhering to it, Zomato commenced the process of delisting non-compliant eateries, including those who didn’t meet the hygiene standards laid down by FSSAI.
In a recent blog post, Deepinder Goyal, its founder and chief executive officer, said, “We have already delisted hundreds of restaurants from our food ordering platform, as these restaurants failed to furnish an FSSAI license. As and when these restaurants provide us their FSSAI licenses, we will enable them for online ordering services.”
Mohit Gupta, chief executive officer, food delivery business, Zomato, said, “We have on-boarded thousands of new restaurant partners over the last two months, and currently list over 50,000 partners on our food delivery platform. This number keeps increasing every day.”
“We have the widest choice available on our platform, and we continue to enhance it for user delight, while making sure that we are upping the ante on food quality and restaurant hygiene every single day,” he added.
Gupta stated, “We are in the process of delisting hundreds of restaurants across the 34 cities in India where we offer our online ordering and food delivery services. Currently, most of our high-order volume restaurant partners either have, or have applied for, their FSSAI licenses. We are certain this move will not have an impact on our order volumes.”
Swiggy, which has 40,000-plus restaurants on its platform, started the delisting process as soon as the directive was issued. In a statement released by the company, it mentioned, “Swiggy has already delisted hundreds of restaurants that are either not compliant with the FSSAI regulations or have poor customer ratings.”
However, both Zomato and Swiggy are helping the restaurants too. The former has extended the deadline for restaurants who were unable to furnish their FSSAI licenses, but had high ratings or high repeat order volumes, to the end of September 2018 to furnish their licenses to the platform.
Goyal said, “The extension offered to high-rated food delivery partners is until the end of this month. In the event of their failure to either furnish or apply for their FSSAI licenses within the stipulated period, we will delist them from our food delivery platform. We would be happy to relist them alongside any of the other partners as and when they furnish their licences.”
Swiggy have put in place an FSSAI Assist Programme to help all non-compliant restaurants procure their licenses within the specified timeframe, and currently aren’t onboarding any new restaurants without a license.
It has also been working with Equinox Labs, a reputed food audit firm accredited by FSSAI and the National Accreditation Board for Testing and Calibration Laboratories (NABL), on food hygiene audits that are conducted at restaurants to ensure the food is being prepared in accordance with the hygiene standards. Moreover, it is also planning a big drive to improve hygiene measures in the ecosystem.
Background
In February 2018, FSSAI operationalised the guidelines for e-commerce food business operators (FBOs), stipulating that they provide for the display of the FSSAI license numbers of listed FBOs on e-commerce platforms and there was an agreement between the e-commerce platforms and FBOs to comply with the Food Safety and Standards Regulations, 2011.
The apex food regulator, in its directive to e-commerce food service platforms, asked that immediate action be initiated to delist the defaulting food businesses and an action taken report be submitted along with the details of FBOs listed on their platforms by July 31, 2018.
The FSSAI directive to e-commerce businesses to debar unlicensed FBOs from operating came following a series of complaints related to sub-standard food being supplied by food businesses listed on these e-commerce foodservice platforms.
Gupta said, “We are fully supportive of FSSAI’s intentions to make the restaurant industry safer for consumers. In fact, in this regard, we launched hygiene rating services for restaurants in late 2017.”
“The FSSAI license is an essential accreditation for the restaurants and sets a parameter for maintaining hygiene, safety and quality of food at their establishments. We, along with FSSAI, are fully aligned and deeply care for making India a better and safer place to eat,” he added.
