Zomato CEO Clarifies On Food Safety Practices After False-Dated Mushrooms Incident

Zomato Chief Executive Officer Deepinder Goyal clarified on Monday regarding food safety at the company's Hyperpure warehouse in Hyderabad, following reports of mushroom packets labelled with future packing dates. Goyal attributed the issue to a vendor error and emphasised the company's commitment to food safety standards.

In a detailed response shared on social media platform X, Goyal clarified that the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) team identified 90 packets of button mushrooms with incorrect packaging dates during an inspection. "These were already identified by our warehouse team and were rejected during an inward QC. This is not usual and was due to a manual typing error on the vendor’s side," he wrote.

The vendor responsible for the error has been delisted from Zomato’s database, he said. "At Hyperpure, we have stringent inward guidelines and tech systems that helped our teams to identify this error in time," Goyal stated. He reassured customers that Zomato is dedicated to maintaining high food safety standards throughout the supply chain.

Goyal also highlighted that the Hyperpure warehouse received an 'A+' rating during the recent food safety inspection, the highest benchmark in the evaluation process. "I am not sure why just these small number of mushroom packets worth Rs 7,200 (out of the crore of inventory in the warehouse), which were never going to make it to customers, are being talked about in the media," he remarked. He suggested that the media narrative may be benefiting those who aim to undermine the Zomato brand.

Several media outlets reported this incident which highlighted that after an inspection done on Oct. 29, it was revealed that the warehouse had stored 18 kilos of button mushrooms with a packing label dated Oct. 30, 2024.