The country’s top food watchdog has put out a call for an explanation over a case of sickness tied to curd from the platform. It’s a step that shows quick commerce is under a more critical eye. FSSAI has also put in for a no-nonsense Action Taken Report to put some of the recent hiccups with consumers to rest.
What set this in motion
We are told FSSAI got a formal, written complaint from a user who was left with a bad case of stomach trouble and diarrhoea not long after having some curd from a Blinkit order. They even had a doctor’s note to back it up when they made their case.
But as sources have it, this is one of several things the regulator has been keeping tabs on. There has been more talk of late – on social media and in official channels – about unhygienic or run-down food coming from sellers on the e-commerce side of things.
What FSSAI is asking of Blinkit
In a May 29 letter to the head of operations and the CEO at Blink Commerce Pvt Ltd, FSSAI has asked for answers. The company is being told to put together a thorough report on what has happened and on the safeguards in place for food safety in general.
Put simply, there are three things on the table:
– An account of the curd issue in writing
– A complete Action Taken Report
– The correspondence we sent to your leadership on the 29th
An ATR is FSSAI’s way of wanting to see the whole picture: how you handle your sellers, what you do to fix problems. Even if the complaint is about a single order of curd, the subtext is a review of the entire operation.
The law of the land for e-commerce FBOs
If you are a food business operator, Sections 26 and 27 of the 2006 FSS Act make it your job to see to the safety of anything you put out there. Being an e-commerce FBO, Blinkit has to live by those rules.
These are the provisions that keep the burden on the platform and its sellers to keep consumers from getting hurt. Our letter is just a reminder of that and a request for some paper trail to show you are in line with it.
A rise in complaints and closer looks
Lately, we’ve had our share of complaints come in about the quality of food on the Blinkit app. We have taken ‘suo-moto cognisance’ of a few social media posts, which is a good measure of how fast these things can get out there.
Just this month, we were after an answer from them on some poor-quality eggs being sold. You could say that was the start of a run of checks prompted by what we see online and in our inboxes.
And it’s not just them. We have put a notice to IRCTC as well, after a video did the rounds of someone washing dishes in a train’s toilet.
Why it is of interest to the buyer
When you are using quick commerce for your day-to-day, trust is everything. If we are firm on holding platforms to account, it changes the way they go about vouching for their sellers and dealing with a problem order.
Between the curd and the eggs, you can see FSSAI is making sure the rules are followed across the board. The end result is a better experience for the shopper, with less chance of ending up with something that’s gone off.
Now we wait to see what Blinkit has to say. We have asked for the report and the explanation; how we proceed will be down to what we find in their response. For the time being, the priority is the consumer and the platform’s part in it.
