Hyderabad: Days after the task force of the food safety department of Telangana raided a Zomato warehouse in Hyderabad and found mushrooms packaged with future dates of manufacturing, the company’s CEO Deepinder Goyal, on Monday, November 4, issued a clarification on X, claiming that was a ‘manual printing error’, from the vendor’s side.
Zomato chief claims mushrooms were rejected
Contrary to the findings by the state’s food and safety department, Zomato’s CEO Deepinder Goyal issued a clarification that the mushrooms found during the raid were already identified by the warehouse staff and were rejected by them during a quality check while it was delivered at the facility.
He said on his X post, that the future printing date was not usual and “was due to a manual typing error on the vendor’s side.”
Stressing their high-quality standards, the Zomato CEO said that the company that supplied faulty mushroom packages has been delisted from their platform. The CEO added that those were the only items that were found to be faulty among inventory worth crores, in the warehouse.
The Zomato chief also claimed that the inspection resulted in the warehouse being given an A+ by the officials, for achieving the highest benchmark set by the food safety department.
He also took a dig at the controversy that followed the incident, commenting “Maybe some people benefit from the virality which they get at the expense of pulling down the Zomato brand.”
Mushrooms found on Oct 29 with DOM on Oct 30
On October 29, the authorities raided Zomato’s B2B supply chain solution Hyperpure’s warehouse in Kukatpally, Hyderabad. During the raids, the officials found 18 kg of mushroom packets printed with the manufacturing date as the next day of the raids (October 30). As the news went out, Zomato faced backlash on social media platforms over the issue.
Inspectors had also observed that the warehouse was disorganised and unhygienic. Workers were not wearing essential protective gear, such as gloves, headgear, and aprons at the time of the raids, and the food handlers were not maintaining medical fitness certificates, that is mandatory for Food and Beverages F&B establishments in Telangana.
The task force had also found shortfalls in insect proofing, and finding houseflies on the premises.
Netizens react to Goyal’s post
Deepinder Goyal’s X post was received by netizens including online food enthusiasts, with some terming the Zomato chief’s clarification as ‘minimizing the issue’.
Another top reply to the post questioned why the items were not discarded before the inspection if they were already found by the warehouse staff to be faulty.
Another netizen commented having future packaging dates is not unusual, as vendors allegedly do this regularly to “cheat the customers”.
While Deepinder Goyal drew criticism for not ‘apologising’ over the issue, netizens appreciated him for directly addressing the issue and making a public statement about it.
Fake ‘analogue paneer’ on Hyperpure
Meanwhile, other netizens raised a different issue from Zomato’s Hyperpure, in which the platform was recently selling “analogue paneer”, or fake paneer, which is not made from traditional methods and ingredients but is artificially made by mixing vegetable oil and skimmed milk.
Paneer is made solely from milk and is expensive, the fake paneer product with cheaper ingredients is largely used by restaurants to reduce their expenses. The morality of Zomato selling them on their platform was questioned by netizens, as a response to Goyal’s statement over faulty mushrooms.
Follow on Twitter | Posted by Parameswaran Valeri | 
