The food safety department raided Blinkit’s warehouse in Hyderabad’s Devarayamjal area (Medchal-Malkajgiri district) and found that several safety measures were not being followed. Blinkit is the quick commerce arm of Zomato.
The raid comes at a time when quick-commerce, as a sector, is gaining prominence because they are attempting to alter how customers shop online. In a bid to turn profitable, companies have also been increasing the number of stock keeping units (SKUs) beyond basic groceries.
In the process of growing, firms like Blinkit do not have basic hygiene checks in place, as per the food safety department which said that companies even have expired food items in their warehouses.
“The products manufactured by Kamakshi Foods licence (were) found to be expired, hence the products of VSR i.e suji (semolina), raw peanut butter, maida (refined flour), poha (flattened rice), besan (gram flour) and bajra (pearl millet) worth Rs 30,000 were seized,” the food safety commissioner posted on X (formerly Twitter).
The department also suspected that other items like whole farm ragi (finger millet) flour and toor dal (pigeon peas) worth Rs 52,000 were infested. These products were seized and samples sent to a lab for checks, the commissioner added in their post.
“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,” a Blinkit spokesperson told Moneycontrol.
The list of lapses do not end there. The department officials found that the premises were “very disorganised (and) unhygienic” and that the storage racks were “dusty”.
Blinkit, like other players in the space, operates in multiple Indian cities and delivers orders in 10 minutes. These deliveries are done through dark stores, which are typically 2,500-3,500 square feet warehouses in and around residential areas.
The orders are processed only by multiple in-house handlers who run around the warehouse floors. To be sure, the place is not open to the public and is not set up on main roads. These dark stores are usually in secluded areas where rents are relatively lower.
While this is the first major raid on a quick commerce company, Hyderabad's food safety department has been conducting several such impromptu checks on eateries and other such places.
Last month, it found that Rameshwaram Cafe, a popular food joint in the south, was using expired products and had open dustbins in spots where the food was being prepared.
The eatery accepted its fault and ordered an internal inquiry, too.
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