E-commerce platforms are obliged to display the FSSAI license and registration number of the concerned entity on their platforms, a spokesperson for FSSAI said in an emailed statement.
The food regulator’s comments came in response to ET’s query about a recent discussion on microblogging platform Twitter on how a writer on Substack, a publishing platform for independent authors, had revealed that a person was allegedly running hundreds of fake brands from a single cloud kitchen and spamming food aggregators with restaurant listings.
Any non-compliance related to food safety, misbranding, and substandard nature of food should be reported to FSSAI via the ‘Food Safety Connect’ mobile app, the spokesperson added.
“In case of cloud kitchens, FSSAI is committed to take action against any reported food safety issue irrespective of the number of brands being managed, operated, or owned by the food business operator,” the spokesperson said.
Prashant Baid, the author of the report on Substack, published on Sunday that an operator was running 200 brands each out of two cloud kitchens in Bengaluru.
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In his post, Baid pointed out that the brand names operated by the cloud kitchen sounded similar or identical to other popular restaurants.
“This may dupe the customer by appearing on top of the search results if the original restaurant is unavailable for delivery at that location,” he wrote. “Creating hundreds of fake restaurant brands on these platforms shouldn’t be so easy.”
I wrote about a mad rabbit hole that led me to a guy who is running 200 different (fake) restaurant brands from one… https://t.co/8dw4yVKIzm
— pb (@prstb) 1661571196000
Swiggy and did not respond to ET’s queries seeking comment.
Three restaurant operators told ET that there was nothing illegal with this and customers were free to order from whichever restaurant they choose.
“As any operator, it is not about one kitchen having 100 brands. You are anyway competing with the market. So now what comes in that competition is quality, consistency, and pricing from a consumer standpoint. So, if you’re fulfilling those obligations that’s all that matters,” said Kabir Suri, president of the National Restaurant Association of India.
Ghost Kitchens chief executive Karan Tanna said, “Having different brand names on aggregators is completely fine from the legal point of view, even if the food is prepared from the same premise, because FSSAI and other health and hygiene norms are pertaining to the actual premise of cooking and not pertaining to what name it is sold on the internet.”
