New Delhi, Sept 6 (KNN) To comply with the directive issued by Food Standard Safety Authority of India (FSSAI), online food delivery platforms such as Zomato and Swiggy have started delisting restaurants that do not have a license from the food regulator.

Earlier in the month of July, FSSAI, the country’s apex food regulator, had issued a direction to 10 e-commerce businesses, viz Box8, Faasos, FoodCloud, Foodmingo, Foodpanda, JusFood, LimeTray, Swiggy, UberEats and Zomato, to debar unlicensed FBOs from operating.

This decision was taken following a series of complaints related to sub-standard food being supplied by food businesses listed on these e-commerce foodservice platforms. 

Following the FSSAI directives, “Zomato has already delisted hundreds of restaurants from its food ordering platform for not being compliant with FSSAI norms on food safety and hygiene,” said Deepinder Goyal, CEO of Zomato.

“As and when these restaurants provide us their FSSAI licenses, we will enable them for online ordering services,” he said in a blog post.

According to media reports, Swiggy said it began the delisting process for restaurants since the FSSAI notice was first sent in July. A company spokesperson also said that they had set up an FSSAI Assist Program to help all the restaurants affected to procure their license within the specified timeframe.

Zomato too is carrying out this exercise across all 34 cities where the firm has presence. It has also offered an extension to all those top rated restaurants on the platform and/or offer high repeat order volumes to the platform, but don’t possess the adequate license.