Restaurants and food business owners are stepping up internal checks and spending on deep cleaning, pest control, kitchen equipment and staff training amid stricter food safety enforcement.
From using artificial intelligence to detect pests in kitchens to taking no-adulteration undertakings from dairy and cottage cheese suppliers, restaurant businesses across the country are fixing gaps in their food safety practices, fearing checks by Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) officials.
Self-checks
The push comes after a series of incidents, ranging from expired products and poor-quality input materials to worms being found in food at top eateries and restaurants, reported on social media, prompting stricter food safety enforcement.
“We have been throwing cooking oil away after the third or fourth use for years. But now, when we read the rules of the , we see that they require all establishments to buy a very expensive oil measuring thermometer that will determine when the oil needs to be thrown and not based on the colour,” said the chief executive of a top-tier restaurant chain.
Daryani said restaurants, including his own chain Wow! Momo, are also focusing on using technology to help eliminate some hygiene issues. “While pest infestations cannot always be eliminated completely due to old pipes and crowded high-street locations, much of the problem is controllable through proper hygiene, cleaning and pest-control systems,” he said.
He estimated that around 90% of pest-related issues can be controlled through measures like installing cameras and AI, while structural factors, including gaps in walls and buildings, can account for some of the remaining problems.
Anurag Katriar, founder of Indigo Hospitality, which runs Indigo Deli and other restaurants, said these checks have always been part of a good food-safety and hygiene curriculum, but now restaurants are revisiting processes that have been part of the system and tightening them wherever necessary.
“There is a special vigil on the smaller aspects of food safety, with greater attention to regular checks, training and sensitizing managers. We recently conducted a complete audit of our stores, covering nearly 2,000 stock-keeping units, and it gave us an opportunity to strengthen our processes,” he said.
On analogue paneer, Katriar added that the company also sought undertakings from its suppliers to ensure they are accountable for the quality and authenticity of the product supplied.
Outside help
The FSSAI crackdown is also creating demand for food-safety and operational consultants. Samir Kuckreja, a hospitality industry consultant, founder and CEO of Delhi-based Tasanaya Hospitality, said he has seen new enquiries from restaurant operators and hotels in recent weeks, with businesses seeking help with food-safety audits, operating procedures and staff training.
“We do a comprehensive review of kitchen operations and then conduct training, both for kitchen and service teams, depending on the gaps we find,” he said. In some cases, even unannounced visits and repeat audits are found to be more useful than scheduled inspections or self-assessment checklists completed by restaurant managers, he added.
Kuckreja said many restaurant groups are making further investments in kitchen renovation, refrigeration and freezing equipment, more robust pest-control programmes and staff training.
Earlier, the focus was more on meeting compliance requirements. Now, businesses are looking more closely at whether their controls are consistently followed across outlets and operations, said Ashwin Bhadri, founder and CEO of Equinox Labs, a food safety and testing services company. “We are seeing more interest in preventive and recurring audits rather than waiting for an inspection or a problem to arise.”
Sanjeev Shenoy, director-Asia at customer experience research and consulting firm HS Brands Global, said the recent FSSAI inspections have highlighted the gap between a standard operating procedure and what an internal checklist says, versus what is actually happening at an outlet.
It has also begun to get inquiries from hotels and restaurants.
Mint’s queries emailed to the FSSAI remained unanswered.
Supply-chain management
While can tighten kitchen hygiene and pest control, traceability of ingredients such as fruits, vegetables, chicken, mutton, and fish sourced through fragmented wholesale markets remains difficult.
A move towards more organized and traceable food ingredients could increase costs, Kuckreja of Tasanaya said. When food businesses shift procurement away from wholesale markets towards larger suppliers, costs increase significantly. Fresh meat, chicken, and fish also pose a separate challenge because many chefs prefer fresh products, while more organized supply chains provide frozen products.