Chennai: Food regulator, FSSAI, has found that some e-commerce platforms did not have particulars on FSSAI license and-or registration with regard to 30-40 % of the restaurants listed on their sites. Some of the e-commerce platforms have not obtained license for themselves, it is said.
According to the conditions of license, e-Commerce platform could only list restaurants that have FSSAI license or registration. The regulator gave two weeks to these food aggregators to submit an action plan to de-list un-licensed or non-registered food businesses.
These aggregators were also advised to promote food safety and hygiene amongst their listed food businesses by training of food safety supervisors, compliance of Good Hygiene Practices (GHP), ensuring display of ‘Food Safety Boards’ on their premises.
Further, it has also been decided to conduct audit of IT platforms of these e-commerce food aggregators from the angle of compliances for food safety and hygiene under the Food Safety and Standards Act, 2006 read with Food Safety (Licensing and Registration) Regulations, 2011.
It may be recalled that last month 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, after receiving consumer complaints of sub-standard food being served through e-commerce platforms. The aggregators were advised to display FSSAI license number on their platform along with name and location of the restaurants.
