Zomato’s CEO Deepinder Goyal took to X (Formerly Twitter) to clarify details on the recent food safety raid on the food delivery giant’s Hyderabad Hyperpure warehouse wherein 90 packets of button mushrooms were found with a future date of packaging.
“These were already identified by our warehouse team and were rejected during an inward QC (Quality control),” Goyal wrote. “This is not usual, and was due to a manual typing error on the vendor’s side,” he added, mentioning that tech systems helped the teams to identify the error in time.
Goyal went on to say that the vendor has been delisted from Zomato’s database and emphasised that the Hyperpure warehouse had received an A+ rating, the highest benchmark in the FSSAI’s ranking.
What happened at Zomato’s Hyderabad Hyperpure warehouse?
Zomato’s Hyperpure warehouse located in Kukatpally, Hyderabad, is known as an FBO (Food Business Operator) which supplies fruits, vegetables, meat, seafood, gourmet foods, packaging, consumables, kitchen equipment, etc, to hotels, restaurants, and caterers.
Food officials conducted a raid on October 29, 2024, and found 18 kgs of button mushrooms being labelled as packed on October 30, 2024, a future date of packing, when the date of packing (Of the concerned food item) is written as a future date rather than the actual date of packing.
This is a food safety violation.
Goyal wrote he’s not sure why the “small number of mushroom packets worth ₹7,200 (out of the crores of inventory in the warehouse), which were never going to make it to customers, are being talked about the media, while we got an A+ rating.”
He went on to allege that “some people benefit from the virality which they get at the expense of pulling down the Zomato brand” and “maybe we all love to believe the narrative that “all big business is bad business.”
However, reports also suggested that the officials found house flies inside the warehouse and noted it didn’t have a proper insect-proof screen. On top of that, a few of the food handlers not wearing hair caps and aprons.
This is despite the warehouse having its license, medical fitness certificates for food handlers, and pest control records.
How did Zomato shares perform?
Zomato Ltd shares were trading at ₹241.55 on the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) at 11:45 am IST during the trading session on Monday, November 4, 2024. This was a drop of 7.50 points or 3.01%.
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