Online food ordering and delivery services operating in Punjab including Zomato, Swiggy and others will now not be able to make any deliveries in the state without a mandatory hygiene rating.
Punjab Health Minister Mr. Brahm Mohindra recently made it mandatory for the online food ordering and delivery companies to display the hygiene rating of all food business operators registered or affiliated with them.
Giving companies three months time to comply with the order, the Minister said “no online food order is to be delivered in the state without hygiene rating” after 90 days of the issuance of a formal communication in this regard.
Punjab Food and Drug Administration Commissioner and Tandrust Punjab Mission Director K S Pannu said the online order and delivery mechanism of food supply has created a physical disconnect between consumers and food makers.
“The onus of ensuring the quality of food and the hygienic condition under which food is prepared has shifted to the intermediate food delivery mechanism”, Pannu said.
All online food ordering and delivery companies shall ensure that FBOs registered/affiliated with them have their hygiene rating done from the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) empanelled companies, he added.
He also said that the representatives of major online food ordering and delivery companies operational in Punjab, like Zomato, Swiggy, Uber Eats, and Ola’s Food Panda, have been sensitised on the issue.
Earlier in March, Zomato launched tamper-proof packaging to ensure secure and hygienic food delivery; Zomato explained, in its blog, that the only way to break the sealed package would be by cutting off the top-end strip.
