NEW DELHI: A festive-season inspection drive by food safety authorities in the national capital has uncovered widespread hygiene violations, pest infestations, and expired stock across warehouses run by leading quick-commerce and retail platforms. Raids conducted at facilities operated by Swiggy Instamart, Blinkit, Reliance Retail, Zomato Hyperpure, and Zepto revealed rotten produce, dusty storage spaces, and broken cold chains. Parallel market surveillance across Delhi also found significant contamination in cooking essentials, with nineteen out of fifty-nine tested desi ghee samples declared entirely unsafe for human consumption.
Dark Stores Flagged for Expired Stock and Pest Infestations
During inspections at Swiggy Instamart’s facility in Uttam Nagar, enforcement officers found expired packets of cow ghee, Greek yoghurt, eggless brownies, and frozen green peas still kept on shelves. Multiple packages containing sprouts, fresh fruits, and vegetables lacked mandatory packaging and expiry details, leaving consumers unable to verify freshness. In the Wazirpur Industrial Area, a Reliance Retail warehouse was found harbouring pests, including lizards, flies, and mosquitoes inside the primary food holding zones.
Hygiene and segregation protocols failed at several other major hubs across Delhi. Inspection teams visiting Blink Commerce facilities on Asaf Ali Road and in Daryaganj noted dirty plastic crates and unwashed storage areas. At its Rohini centre, officials observed inadequate separation between diverse food categories, raising immediate concerns over cross-contamination risks. Meanwhile, inspectors at Zomato Hyperpure’s warehouse in Ghevra seized expired beverages, including Diet Coke and Nestle Shikanji. At Zepto’s Jheel Khureja outlet, officials detected lapses in cold-storage temperature regulation, threatening the preservation of perishable items.
Desi Ghee Surveillance Exposes Widespread Adulteration
Alongside dark-store raids, the Food Safety Department collected fifty-nine branded desi ghee samples from retail hubs across the city, including Laxmi Nagar, Preet Vihar, Tagore Garden, Rampura, Naharpur, Posangipur, Kalyanpuri, Krishna Vihar, and Kondli. Laboratory testing determined that nineteen samples were completely unsafe for human consumption, while four others failed standard safety benchmarks. Combined, these twenty-three failing samples represent roughly thirty-nine percent of the tested batch, though departmental records noted a failure rate exceeding forty-two percent across general testing benchmarks, pending full classification.
The widespread failure of staple dairy goods comes ahead of the festive season, when household demand for sweets and cooking fats reaches peak levels. Authorities noted that substandard dairy products and unmonitored storage setups pose acute public health risks. Routine market surveillance and laboratory screenings remain critical to ensuring packaged products adhere strictly to composition and safety norms before reaching consumer kitchens.
Government Orders Legal Action and Heightened Oversight
The special enforcement drive was ordered across multiple zones under directions from Chief Minister Rekha Gupta, who instructed officials to maintain zero tolerance toward practices endangering public health. The department confirmed that formal legal proceedings are underway against every establishment found violating safety statutes.
With quick-commerce networks now serving as primary grocery suppliers for thousands of households, officials emphasised that dark stores must uphold identical hygiene benchmarks as physical retail shops. Regulators are monitoring these facilities to ensure proper temperature controls, pest eradication, intact packaging, and immediate removal of expired inventory. Follow-up action and statutory penalties will proceed based on final laboratory assessments and documented compliance records.
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