Mumbai Food Inspector Runs 3,000 Raids, Finds Rats and Roaches at Domino's, Pizza Hut, Zepto

A government official enforcing the rules against powerful corporations and getting away with it is a rare story.

Tukaram Mundhe, Maharashtra's food safety commissioner since May, has overseen more than 3,000 inspections of restaurants, warehouses, and food delivery outlets across the state, according to Reuters. By July 31, his department had seized goods worth 55 crore rupees and suspended licenses at 165 institutions, Mundhe told Business Today at an India@100 event, as reported by India Today.

The findings aren't subtle. Inspectors found cockroaches, rats, expired chicken, rotten vegetables, and rodent droppings across a range of businesses, according to Hindustan Times. Four Domino's outlets and one Pizza Hut location had their permits suspended in recent weeks, according to Reuters reporting carried by The Straits Times, The Star, and english.aaj.tv.

Quick-commerce got hit hard too

The crackdown didn't stop at sit-down restaurants. On a single day, the FDA suspended licenses of 10 food delivery chains, including Blinkit, Zepto, and Instamart, after inspecting 86 outlets, Hindustan Times reported. Sixty outlets got improvement notices, 14 had licenses suspended, and one was ordered to stop operating immediately.

At an Instamart facility on Hill Road in Bandra, officials found cockroaches in the storage area, rodent droppings near food packets, dust, cobwebs, an ant infestation, and rusted racks, according to Hindustan Times. Another Instamart location in Andheri West was storing curry-cut chicken that had already expired.

The Maharashtra FDA also suspended a Parle Agro license after finding expired Frooti, Appy, and Apple Fizz worth 99,970 rupees at a Chembur warehouse, Hindustan Times reported.

When a judge pushed back, Mundhe raided the courts too

A Mumbai judge accused his department of selectively targeting private businesses and asked whether court canteens had ever been checked, according to Reuters. Mundhe's teams inspected the court canteens within hours and shut down some that were operating without licenses.

Plenty of bureaucrats posture about accountability until it points back at their own government. Mundhe didn't blink.

"Those who try to not comply, they will face what is expected from the regulator," Mundhe told Reuters. "You are dealing with the lives of people."

The scale of the underlying problem

This isn't a Mumbai quirk. Indian food inspectors have checked more than 100,000 food samples annually since 2020, and roughly 20% came back unsafe, substandard, or improperly labeled, according to government data cited by Reuters. Nearly 8,000 food business licenses have been pulled over the past three years.

Ankur Bisen, a partner at consumer consulting firm The Knowledge Company, told Reuters the public reaction to Mundhe reflects years of suppressed frustration. "Everyone has tried to normalise this for years by saying it happens in India. It's basically bottled-up anger," Bisen said. "I have never seen anyone like Mundhe. It's giving people hope."

Reuters visited 25 street vendors and restaurants in Mumbai and found some had already changed behavior under the scrutiny. One vendor swapped artificial red dye for natural chili. Another started changing frying oil three times daily and required staff to wear gloves and head caps.

Is this selective enforcement or genuine reform?

Critics, including the judge who raised the point in court, have a fair concern worth taking seriously: a regulator with unchecked discretion could theoretically go after politically convenient targets while leaving favored businesses alone. That's a legitimate worry with any enforcement campaign that moves this fast and generates this much publicity.

But the record so far cuts against that read. Mundhe's teams hit foreign chains (Domino's, Pizza Hut), homegrown giants (Parle Agro), quick-commerce platforms (Blinkit, Zepto, Instamart), legacy Mumbai restaurants, cricket clubs, and government-run court canteens. That's not a pattern of picking soft targets. It's closer to what enforcement is supposed to look like when nobody gets a pass.

Mundhe, a 2005-batch officer in India's Administrative Service, has been transferred roughly 25 times over his 21-year career, a signature of officers who ruffle feathers, India Today reported. He said in a 2018 interview he gets transferred "every year." Asked at the India@100 event whether he'd move into politics, Mundhe said no. "I am a forthright, very open-hearted, outspoken person. I don't know whether politics likes these qualities," he told Business Today.

Copycats are showing up elsewhere

The Mundhe effect appears to be spreading. In Karnataka, FDA chief Srinivas K led raids at Vidhana Soudha and Arogya Soudha, the state's own government headquarters, finding expired food and cockroaches at official canteens, News18 reported. Srinivas K pushed back on comparisons to Mundhe, telling reporters Karnataka's food safety push predates Maharashtra's effort.

Whether that timeline holds up is a separate question from whether the enforcement is real. What's measurable so far: 3,000-plus raids, 55 crore rupees in seized goods, 165 suspended licenses, and a list of household names, from Domino's to Zepto to the Bombay High Court's own canteen, that all got the same treatment. The FDA has not announced how many of the suspended licenses have since been reinstated, or how many businesses are contesting the findings in court, which remains the open question for anyone watching whether this crackdown outlasts the headlines.