HYDERABAD: As the joke goes, if you throw a stone in the city these days, chances are that it will either hit a biryani store or a food-delivery guy. And why not? Food delivery apps are all the rage now and their exciting offers the door to paradise for an average foodie. Many of the operators even claim to slash 50 per cent from the actual price of the food item ordered. But then again, beware of the kind of food that knocks at your doorstep. In most cases, you might be given either stale food or a much-lesser quantity than you’d expect.
Explaining how restaurants collect profits in the guise of offers, an FSSAI official said, “You know that the size of the poori is supposed to be bigger, but most people don’t notice. This makes it easy for them to give away more discounts.” The food delivered through online orders is exclusively prepared at a lesser quantity. “They use substandard ingredients as well in most cases,” informed officials.
The FSSAI office receives at least ten complaints every day. Case in point, a consumer from Gachibowli recently filed a complaint after finding a cockroach in his paneer biryani that he had ordered using a prominent food delivery app. The officials found that the restaurant was sending unhygienic food for online deliveries, and slapped a fine.
Unclean delivery bags
“The bags used for food delivery are not hygienically maintained,” feel officials. On numerous occasions, the food delivered is kept in unclean bags that carry a lot of fungus and bacteria on it.