Delhi food safety inspections at facilities operated by online food delivery and retail companies have found expired food products, pests, unhygienic storage conditions and lapses in temperature control, prompting the city government to order tighter monitoring ahead of the festival season.
The Delhi government’s Food Safety Department conducted inspections at several food storage and retail premises, officials said. The inspections found expired green peas, Greek yoghurt, eggless chocolate-chip brownies and cow ghee at a food company’s facility in Uttam Nagar.
At another facility in the Wazirpur Industrial Area, officials found flies, mosquitoes and a lizard, along with spider webs. The cleaning schedule and related checklist were not available at the premises, according to an official statement.
Inspections at a major online food aggregator’s facility in Daryaganj found dirty crates and dust in food storage areas. Officials also found that rat traps had not been placed at appropriate locations and that the number of traps was inadequate. At the aggregator’s Rohini store, food items were not segregated, creating a risk of cross-contamination between products, the statement said.
The department also found failures to maintain prescribed temperatures at several premises. Food samples were collected during the inspections, and improvement notices were issued to the establishments concerned. The notices require the businesses to address deficiencies identified during the enforcement exercise.
The inspection drive also covered desi ghee samples. Of 59 samples tested, 19 were found to be unsafe, while four failed to meet food safety standards, according to the official statement. The authorities said action was being taken in accordance with the rules based on the deficiencies found.
Chief Minister Rekha Gupta has directed officials to tighten monitoring of markets, food storage facilities and establishments supplying food products, the Chief Minister’s Office said. The direction comes as online grocery and food delivery networks increasingly depend on distributed storage facilities located within neighbourhoods to hold and dispatch products.
The findings place operational practices such as expiry tracking, cold-chain maintenance, pest control, cleaning documentation and product segregation under scrutiny. These systems are particularly important at facilities handling multiple categories of food products before orders are delivered to households.
The Food Safety Department’s inspections and the improvement notices are the immediate official actions disclosed in the statement. The establishments concerned are required to respond to the deficiencies identified by the department under the applicable food safety rules.
