The Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) has issued show-cause notices to quick commerce unicorn Zepto as well as several food and nutraceutical brands amid a broader crackdown on food safety violations.
The notice against Zepto followed a consumer complaint on social media alleging delivery of expired packets of besan (gram flour). The regulator directed the platform to submit order logs, seller details, warehouse tracking, root-cause analysis, and proof of stock withdrawal and customer refunds.
Besides Zepto, nutraceutical brands BMS Lifescience and HealthyHey Foods, as well as bakery brand Bakelite Food Processing, received show-cause notices over misleading labelling and advertising.
- Bakelite: The parent company behind Pune-based Malpani Foods was targeted over describing its product, ‘Malpani’s Bakelite Puneri Cream Roll’, as ‘creamy’. However, the product includes no cream or any other dairy-based ingredients but hydrogenated vegetable fat, margarine, and sugar.
- BMS Lifescience: The brand was marketing ‘HAOG’s Cranberry Urinary Tract Health Capsules’ under an expired FSSAI registration certificate, and also made health-related claims around disease risk reduction pertaining to the kidney and urinary tract without approval from the regulator. It was also pulled up for misleading usage of the official FSSAI logo, non-compliant use of the claim “as directed by healthcare practitioner”, and making potentially misleading claims online.
- HealthyHey Foods: The regulator called out the brand for discrepancies in labelled ingredients across its website and Flipkart regarding its “HealthyHey Nutrition Natural Cranberry Extract 25% Capsules”. It further alleged the brand was making unapproved claims like “100% Natural”; and marketing the product with the FSSAI logo and “FSSAI certified” in a misleading way.
The regulator has directed all the companies to submit comprehensive written explanations and corrective action reports within stipulated deadlines or face license suspensions and statutory penalties.
Just days earlier, the regulator pulled up BigBasket and Flipkart over misleading promotions carried by products sold on the respective platforms.
Besides, the FSSAI has also sanctioned adjudication proceedings against beverage brand Storia. It had earlier flagged the brand’s pomegranate juice for containing only 4% pomegranate juice concentrate and 12% apple juice concentrate, in spite of misleading front-of-pack branding and visual imagery.
The authority had also cited non-compliant declarations, including prominent “No Added Sugar” claims alongside obscured disclosures, and the unapproved claim “Equivalent to 100% Fruit Juice (Reconstituted)”.
Notably, the Central Consumer Protection Authority (CCPA) had also fined the brand ₹1 Lakh for misleading consumers. The consumer protection body pulled up Storia for using the branding “100%” in their product labelling, due to reconstituted ingredients and lack of evidence.
The latest series of notices fits into a larger pattern of the FSSAI identifying illegal food labelling and marketing practices on products sold online. Till now, it has also penalised multiple platforms — Amazon, Bigbasket, Flipkart, Swiggy Instamart and Zepto — for allegedly engaging in misbranding, misleading claims, and sale and display of prohibited or poisonous food articles.
For Zepto, the fresh regulatory scrutiny adds on to legal issues the quick commerce major has been facing ahead of its proposed public plans.
Zepto disclosed multiple ongoing regulatory and labour-related proceedings in its updated DRHP, which was filed with the markets regulator SEBI earlier in June.
These include consumer protection cases over alleged dark patterns, food safety violations as well as an Enforcement Directorate inquiry into its ownership structure under FEMA. The company’s subsidiary has also faced allegations of overcharging beyond MRP and misleading advertisements. Other pending matters involve alleged wage underpayment, trade licence violations and food safety issues across several states.
Besides the regulatory challenges, Zepto had faced unalignment with institutional investors over its IPO valuations which led the company to pause its IPO until May 2027. The quick commerce major is currently chasing a pre-IPO placement of about ₹1,000 Cr.
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