WHAT HAPPENED
The Maharashtra Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued a statewide compliance order on 30 October covering expired, damaged and customer returned food. It applies to warehouses, fulfilment centres, dark stores (small delivery only warehouses), cold storages, depots and distributors. The FDA said it seized food worth about ₹5.01 crore across 10 locations, including 91,353 kg of dry fruits and spices worth ₹4.12 crore at Sawla Foods and Cold Storage in Turbhe, Navi Mumbai, and acted against licences of units linked to Reliance Retail, Reliance Consumer Products, Zomato Hyperpure, Blinkit and Cloudstore Retail in Bhiwandi, Ambernath and Pune. Mid-day places the inspection drive in October, while the Free Press Journal says the seizures ran from June to October.
WHY IT MATTERS
The order puts the burden of proof on the stock owner, and FDA Commissioner Tukaram Mundhe said handing stock to a disposal agency “does not end a company’s responsibility.” According to the Free Press Journal, warehouses must keep expired goods in a locked quarantine zone under CCTV, give seven days’ notice before destroying 50 kg or more, use only disposal firms authorised by the Maharashtra Pollution Control Board, and file disposal details within 30 days, with fines of up to ₹10 lakh for false records. Bhiwandi and Pune are among India’s busiest warehousing clusters, so every third party logistics (3PL) operator storing food there now carries compliance risk.
EXPERT VIEW
This is the first state rule I have seen that treats reverse logistics (the flow of returned and expired goods) as a warehouse compliance duty, and I expect it to spread. Quick commerce platforms and grocery chains lose most, because their dark stores produce large volumes of near expiry returns, while authorised waste processors and warehouse software vendors with batch tracking gain. Coverage misses that 3PL operators and cold storage landlords are exposed too, since the largest seizure was at a facility holding other firms’ stock. The pattern resembles the 2018 rollout of electronic way bills, when a tax control became a routine warehouse record within a year. I predict, with medium confidence, that at least one more large state issues a similar order within six months.
WHAT YOU SHOULD DO
1. Audit your Maharashtra sites this week for a locked, labelled quarantine area with CCTV coverage.
2. Ask each disposal vendor for its Maharashtra Pollution Control Board authorisation and proof of recent destruction.
3. Start compiling the disposal agreements and expired stock details the FDA wants within 30 days.
SOURCES
Mid-day, 30 October 2026, Expired food worth Rs 5 crore seized in Maharashtra
Free Press Journal, 30 October 2026, Maharashtra FDA makes food companies accountable for disposal of expired stock
NDTV Profit, 30 October 2026, Tukaram Mundhe says warehouses repackaged and sold expired food
Image credit: Anna Shvets on Pexels
Image used just for representational purposes. It may, or may not, have any relevance to the story.
