The Pune Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has registered cases after inspections found expired food products at warehouses linked to Reliance Retail and Blink Commerce in Chakan MIDC, raising a food-safety concern at facilities that handle packaged goods for urban supply chains.
The first action took place at a Reliance Retail warehouse at the ESR Chakan Industrial and Logistic Park in Ambethan. The facility stores packaged food products, according to the FDA report cited by Punekar News.
The FDA said expired, damaged and rodent-contaminated food items at the facility were required to be destroyed. Employees had reportedly told the department that the stock had been destroyed. During a subsequent inspection, however, FDA officials found expired products still stored at the warehouse.
A case was registered at the North Mahalunge MIDC police station against Reliance Retail distribution centre manager Rakesh Kumar, Yasin Food Centre owner Yasin Sanna Shaikh and Piyush Vyas. The report does not specify the provisions under which the case was registered.
In a separate inspection at a Blink Commerce warehouse in Nighoje, another FDA team also found expired food products stored at the facility. A case was registered at the South Mahalunge MIDC police station against Jaspreet Singh, Bharat Balu Patil, Imran Salim Khan and Tirthlal Manojkumar Saroj, all identified in the report as residents of Nighoje in Khed taluka.
The inspections place attention on the role of warehouse-level controls in the handling of packaged food before it reaches retail and delivery networks. The reported findings concern storage facilities in Chakan MIDC, an industrial and logistics area in Pune district, rather than retail outlets themselves.
The FDA has taken action in both cases, while further investigation is underway. The available report does not state whether the products had entered consumer circulation, the quantity of stock found, or the final disposal process followed by the authorities.
