Bengaluru Food Safety Crackdown: Expired food worth Rs 1.38 crore, medicines seized from dark stores
The Bengaluru police have stepped up operations related to food safety violations and has already recovered some Rs 1.38 crore of expired and wrongly labelled food from dark stores and storage units of online food delivery apps. During the inspections, approximately Rs 4 lakh worth of medicines were seized as well.
Food and Drugs Administration (FSA) is responsible for the inspections which follow admonition of Health Minister U T Khader. The checks were made by the officials under the Food Safety and Standards Act, 2006 as well as the Drugs and Cosmetics Act, 1940.
The operation targeted the storage and sale of food and medicines via online/e-commerce channels. Authorities verified required information like manufacture date, expiry date, shelf life, etc., and investigated other food safety standards. The required medicines licences were checked in the medicine storage facilities.
These include food products worth Rs 14 lakh, which were found to be labeled incorrectly/poorly and food items worth Rs 10 lakh that were expired at Amazon’s BLR6 at Hitech Defence and Aerospace Park at Devanahalli. The medicines worth of Rs 2,45,352 were also seized for allegedly not under the required licence.
Inappropriate labelling of food valued at Rs 19 lakh and fresh vintage food valued at Rs 13 lakh were arrested by officials at Amazon’s BLR7 in Anekal taluk. In addition, medicines valued at Rs 1.57 lakh were also found to be in contravention of the licence.
The officials have also discovered out-of-date food stuffs at Saptha Bazaar in HBR Layout after a complaint was received regarding “over resale” of groceries and other food products from online delivery companies.
Around Rs 10,000 worth of expired food items such as cashew biscuits, ragi flour, chicken patties, paneer, cookies, nuts, eggs and flour were seized by the Food Safety Officers.
The incidents illustrate the increasing regulation over food and medicine keeping processes in the booming online food delivery service in Bengaluru.