Two heartening developments suggest an irreversible change is under way: Indians are finally waking up to how much of what they eat is not what it is claimed to be. It doesn't matter whether the source is a multinational brand, a five-star eatery, a roadside cart or the neighbourhood grocer; they are all seen to be suspect.
The first is the Tukaram Mundhe effect, the most aggressive crackdown on food safety India has seen in years. Since he was appointed commissioner of the food and drug administration (FDA) in Maharashtra in May 2026, over ₹55 crore worth of adulterated and non-compliant products have been seized; more than 12,000 establishments suspended or shut; and hundreds of first information reports (FIRs) registered against food and drug companies.
The second is the national-level, unprecedented regulatory crackdown by the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) across the food & beverage industry, partly driven by tough judicial oversight from the Supreme Court (SC) in a public interest litigation (PIL) demanding greater transparency in front-of-pack food labelling. I discussed this last month here: Food Packet Ke Andar Kya Hai? Our Right to Know.
The SC has, since, toughened its stand on labelling and FSSAI has responded to public pressure for better-quality food by initiating action against mislabelling through more than 150 notices. In its most recent move, it has filed three separate cases against Nestlé India over misleading promotional claims and a sub-standard biotin finding in its infant and follow-up formula products.
In another action, it asked Dabur India to withdraw unverified medicinal and immunity claims not backed by peer-reviewed human trials. A third strand targets the widespread misleading use of ‘100% pure’ ‘100% natural’, or ‘100% guaranteed’ forcing companies such as Apis India, MasterChow, Amway India, Emami and Bonn Biscuits to modify their packaging. Energy-drink and liquor companies have also faced action — most notably Diageo-controlled United Spirits, where FSSAI tests exposed artificial, nature-identical flavouring in its rum and whisky batches.
Popular food brands have faced action too. People were shocked to learn of severe hygiene breaches at Chheda Specialities Foods’ storage facility, while Wai Wai-maker, CG Foods, was caught reprocessing broken noodles into bhujia, using predated packaging and running unlicensed production lines. FSSAI has also issued a dozen notices to e-commerce and quick-commerce operators — including Amazon Now and Flipkart Minutes — and cancelled the licence of one Amazon warehouse.
More than 20 notices have gone out to hotels and restaurants, including international hospitality groups such as Marriott, Hilton, Hyatt, Radisson, Four Seasons and Shangri-La, over calorie disclosure and menu-labelling lapses.
Separately, the central consumer protection authority (CCPA) has also tightened action. In June this year, it fined Storia for mislabelling, after it had been pulled up by FSSAI about‘100% natural’ claims.
Together with the Supreme Court’s relentless pushback against industry resistance and FSSAI’s pro-industry stance on warning labels, this wave of enforcement is beginning to transform public understanding of the food we consume.
On 10 September 2026, a bench of justices JB Pardiwala and K Vinod Chandran, in 3S and Our Health Society v. Union of India &Anr., raised searching questions about FSSAI’s proposal for two-phase implementation of warning labels for junk food, down to the size and detail of the warning hexagon to be printed on the front of the pack and the distinction between ‘added’ sugar and ‘total’ sugar.
Role of E-commerce
One issue that remains outside the Court’s 31-page order, but is key to food safety, has been partly addressed by FSSAI itself: the role of e-commerce and quick-delivery operators such as Amazon, Flipkart, Zepto and Blinkit.
The front-of-pack labelling issue and the sale of fake and pirated products, is a larger problem when it comes to e-commerce companies which have allowed innumerable sellers to list products online with poor disclosure of ingredients and expiry dates. Since apps already flag vegetarian and non-vegetarian products with a green and red dot, respectively, adding a clearer hexagon, as the Court has directed, should not be difficult.
FSSAI isn’t unaware of the problem. In July 2026, it issued formal directions to all e-commerce food business operators, asking them to delist non-compliant products and stop listings whose online description, claims or images don’t match what’s printed on the physical pack.
A LocalCircles survey released in August found that 89% of respondents want any front-of-pack warning label to show up prominently on e-commerce and quick-commerce listings before a product is even added to a cart. This concern extends well beyond food — to shampoos, cosmetics, detergents and personal-care products, where companies routinely make unverified claims about being environmentally safe or about their composition. Terms like ‘free range’ carry very specific meanings but are used loosely: Swiggy Instamart’s own NOICE eggs, sold under a name not even covered by Instamart’s existing FSSAI licence, are routinely thrown up in a search for ‘free range’ products, with no clarity on whether they actually qualify.
The good news is that action is not limited to FSSAI. The Maharashtra FDA has suspended the licences of 14 food establishments connected to Blinkit, Zepto and Instamart, after uncovering food safety and hygiene violations. Commissioner Tukaram Mundhe has said that, although food delivery platforms are classified as food business operators under the law, they have not assumed the responsibilities that classification implies — which is why the FDA has initiated direct action against them.(Read: Cockroaches, expired food: Maharashtra FDA suspends 14 licences linked to Blinkit, Zepto, Instamart).
Online platforms have consistently dodged accountability for the products they sell for nearly a decade. In 2017, I had reported on a meeting at the ministry of consumer affairs, where an Amazon India representative argued that the company could not be held responsible for fakes on its platform, since Indian law bars it from operating as a direct retailer. Multinational companies that found counterfeiters selling on the platform were as helpless as ordinary consumers, since the platform refused to accept responsibility either way.
Three years later, the Consumer Protection (E-Commerce) Rules, 2020 introduced mandatory seller undertakings and ‘fall-back liability’ for platforms; but things have not changed much. In 2024, Flipkart argued before a West Bengal consumer commission that it was ‘merely an online marketplace’ when a buyer produced written confirmation from a seller that a tin of whey protein was counterfeit. The seller was fined; Flipkart was not. There are similar complaints about Myntra, Meesho and others.
The problem is not limited to food and cosmetics. Publishers, whose books are hijacked by an unauthorised seller on Amazon, Flipkart or other platforms, often find that getting the platform to block or remove that seller is itself a punishment: it requires the legitimate publisher to prove ownership, rather than requiring a seller, who has been dubiously on-boarded by the platform to prove authorisation.
So far, enforcement actions under the Consumer Protection Act or FSSAI are slow and episodic. In January this year, the CCPA initiated suo motoaction against the illegal listing and sale of walkie-talkies operating on restricted and sensitive radio-frequency bands, issuing notices to 13 e-commerce entities and eventually imposing penalties totalling ₹44 lakh on eight of them, including ₹10 lakh each on Amazon, Flipkart, Meesho and Meta. It is among the first instances of platforms being held directly accountable for what is sold on them, rather than only the third-party seller.
Earlier this month, the government notified the Consumer Protection (E-Commerce) (Amendment) Rules, 2026, amending and tightening the Consumer Protection Act. From 1 January 2027, e-commerce platforms will have to be more transparent about search rankings and sponsored listings, substantiate discount claims against the lowest price charged in the preceding 30 days, disclose key seller and product information, conduct annual dark-pattern audits and strengthen grievance redressal. Unfortunately, the amended rules still do not make marketplaces automatically liable for every counterfeit or pirated product sold by a third-party seller.
There remains one more battle to be fought. Online marketplaces already use sophisticated algorithms and artificial intelligence (AI) to predict what consumers will buy and serve up those products on their timelines. It is reasonable to ask that the same sophistication be applied to ensuring that only genuine products, making claims they can substantiate, are sold on their platforms. Instead, it is ordinary consumers who are turning to freely available AI tools to check dubious claims, when this could easily be mandated and enforced at the platform level.
Ultimately, the test of effective regulation is not whether a warning label exists, but whether consumers have the information they need at the moment of making choice, whether on a shop shelf or on a screen. Companies will ensure that AI and technology is used to catch fake and unsafe products only when tough enforcement and penalties make compliance a cheaper and better option.
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