The Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) has issued new guidelines that make online groceries and directly impact online food and grocery operators such as Grofers and BigBasket as well as food delivery platforms like Swiggy and Zomato.
The national food regulator said it’s speeding up scrutiny of ecommerce food companies because there can be no compromise on last-mile delivery and safety of food products. The terms are applicable to those who use these platforms to benefit.
What the new rule says?
As per the new guideline of FSSAI, before the delivery of food, its self-life should be 30% ie Expiry 45 days earlier. If a company does not follow these new rules, severe action will be taken against it.
FSSAI says that any food products sold in the market from now onwards can be checked up anywhere during the supply chain. Companies will also have to present a food product demo picture on their platform so that the customer can spot them.
FSSAI CEO Pawan Agrawal said, “currently a big number of customers are accessing e-commerce platforms.” The purpose of the revised rules is to increase the vigilance of food products being delivered to the customers, which will help in e-commerce food business sector But trust and credibility will also increase. ”
What Companies respond:
On the new rule, online grocerie grofers CEO Albinder Dhindsa said that we are following all legal requirements. We also ensure that our merchant partners follow them. At the same time, Zomato said that “we welcome every step of FSSAI to make the restaurant industry more secure for the customers. We provide last mile deliveries to our users and we are taking strict measures to ensure the safety of the food.”
Zomato has excluded “thousands” of restaurants from its food ordering platform in recent months, as Zomato reported.
A recent Crisil report said that food and online groceries are expected to be the fastest-growing segment in online retail and will almost quadruple in the next three years to 10 billion rupees in revenue. Estimates estimate that the general food and grocery market in India is $ 400 billion.
