Online sale of ‘home cooked food’ going on unchecked

PFA DG orders staff to warn all online food sellers to get licences

within one month or face action

LAHORE

Sale of ‘home cooked food’ on social media is going on unchecked in the provincial metropolis as hundreds of self-styled chefs are selling their products straight from their homes without having a proper food licence.

It is learnt that other than proper catering companies, restaurants and hotels, hundreds of private individuals have created pages on social media sites, including Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Youtube and are busy in selling food items. These individuals advertise with colourful pictures of food on their pages to attract buyers and supply food to their client’s home.

“What is going on in their kitchen, how clean and hygienic is it, what is the food quality, what ingredients they are using, what is the expiry dates of the ingredients, are the cooks/handlers infected with any transferable disease or are they medically fit,” are some questions, which one should think before purchasing food from these self-styled chefs.

These people are offering every kind of food, including breakfast, lunch, dinner, snacks, bakery items, cakes, frozen meat items i.e. kababs, samosas, rolls and etc. They also offer attractive deals of food with free home delivery. During Ramazan, such kind of pages increased to manifolds as many household females also jumped in to earn money by selling small items.

“Under the provisions of section 15 of the Punjab Food Authority Act, 2011, every food operator is required to obtain a licence to run a food business and this licence shall be renewed annually,” said a senior PFA official, adding getting a food licence is necessary to ensure hygiene and quality.

However, majority of people selling food items on social media thought this rule didn’t apply on them as they are not manufacturing food in a commercial way. Ironically, PFA didn’t have a specific category mentioned on its website for this kind of business.

Sources in PFA said that since its inception PFA didn’t work or discuss checking/monitoring of online food sellers or ensuring pure food rules on those selling food under the label of homemade food on social media like Facebook and other sites.

“Monitoring and risk analysis of different food items produced or marketed is one of the important functions of the PFA,” said sources, adding the authority however didn’t have any mechanism to monitor the products/food of these online sellers. They said PFA carry out food surveillance through sampling but in this case the authority had not taken a single sample yet while no raid was carried out on any premises to check hygienic and cleanliness conditions of the kitchens.

"Your home is your home, and some people may smoke cigarettes in their kitchen, some people may have their pets roaming in the kitchens, some people may have kids running in the kitchen," Shahid Malik, a local lawyer said, adding such things didn’t happen in a commercial kitchen. He said under pure food rules, all food handlers should have their blood screened but in this case no one knows that either the cook or the handler has a medical fitness certificate or not.

According to the food laws, all food products should include labels with complete disclosure of ingredients, net quantity, weight of total ingredients, as well as the name and location of the maker of the packaged goods. But in case of online food sellers, such information is completely missing.

On the other hand, these food sellers are also causing huge loss to national exchequer as majority of them is not paying any kind of tax to the provincial as well as federal government but charging their clients with commercial prices. “I am making food in my home kitchen exactly as I made food for my family,” said owner of a Facebook page “Yeah Ghar Ka Hai (YGKH)”. She admitted that she didn’t have any food licence but argued that she is preparing food in a very hygienic manner. However, she became furious when the scribe asked her that she is selling food on commercial prices so she is also required to pay tax to the government, which she earlier admitted that she isn’t paying.

“We are not doing a proper food business so why should we take licence from PFA,” said Mrs Akhtar, a resident of Johar Town, who is offering frozen samosa, rolls and other such items on her Facebook page. She said she used her page more for interaction rather than a food selling portal.

PFA Director General Noorul Amin Mengal while talking to The News said that all those dealing in food business in any way are bound to get licence from PFA. “No extra legislation is required to handle online food businesses,” he said in reply to a question that there is no category of online food sellers in PFA rules. Mengal also directed his staff to immediately issue a newspaper advertisement warning all online food sellers to get licences from PFA within a period of one month; otherwise, action will be taken against them as per law.