FDA Cracks Down on Mumbai Food Outlets, Suspends Café Mondegar and Three Others

The Maharashtra Food‑Safety Department stepped up its game this September, walking into Mumbai’s bustling eateries with a clipboard and a keen eye. What they found was far from appetizing – glaring breaches of temperature control, sloppy food‑handling practices and even structural flaws that could invite cross‑contamination.

Among the most high‑profile hits was Café Mondegar, the iconic hangout at Metro House in Colaba. Inspectors discovered that hot dishes were being kept below the mandatory 60 °C, while cold storages failed to stay under the 5 °C mark. To make matters worse, the team observed food being thawed on open counters, a practice that can turn a simple dish into a bacterial hotspot.

“These lapses are not just technicalities; they’re real health risks for anyone who walks in the door,” said a senior FDA official in a statement released after the raid.

But Café Mondegar was not the only one in the regulator’s cross‑hairs. The Maharashtra Biryani Centre in Kandivali East, Tribhuvan Dairy Farm in Ghatkopar West, and Mahavir Cashew & Foods Pvt Ltd in Ghatkopar East all saw their licences suspended for flouting Schedule 4 of the Food Safety and Standards Act – the rulebook that spells out mandatory hygiene standards for every food business.

The crackdown didn’t stop at restaurants. In a broader sweep targeting the festival‑season rush, the FDA inspected 38 establishments across the city, seized 47 food samples and confiscated goods worth more than ₹15.58 lakh. Milk, khoya, ghee, sweets and even barfi were among the items sampled.

Some concrete examples: at Ayush Milk Supplier in Andheri East, officers seized 23 kg of barfi valued at ₹6,440. In Mulund West, a Khoya sample from Brijwasi Mithaiyan was taken, and 225 kg of the remaining stock – worth about ₹60,300 – was impounded.

Beyond Mumbai, the regulator’s net stretched to other parts of Maharashtra. In Kolhapur, 10 kg of halwa and nearly 200 kg of rabadi suspected of being sub‑standard were seized. In Pune, a single haul of 1,519 kg of milk, butter and skimmed‑milk powder – valued at ₹8.5 lakh – was pulled off the shelves for failing labelling norms.

Even more unsettling were the finds in Jalgaon district, where over 2,150 kg of sweet halwa worth ₹5.58 lakh were confiscated from two transport trucks. Similar raids netted khoya, peda, ghee and other dairy‑based sweets across villages and towns, all flagged for possible adulteration.

All told, the FDA’s statewide operation resulted in the seizure of 30 litres of liquid milk and a whopping 4,138.7 kg of assorted dairy products and sweets, totaling roughly ₹15.58 lakh in value.

In a related but separate bust, a joint FDA‑police team seized gutkha and other prohibited items worth ₹95.3 lakh in Rajur, Jalna district, and impounded vehicles used to ferry the contraband, adding another ₹40 lakh to the total seized assets.

Legal proceedings are already underway. Two individuals – Sandeep Dattu Bhumkar and Ashish Dholtani – along with the implicated supplier companies, have been booked under multiple sections of the Food Safety Act and related statutes.

For diners in Mumbai, the message is clear: regulators are watching, and the bar for hygiene is being raised. Whether you’re grabbing a quick snack or settling in for a dinner at a beloved haunt, the hope is that your next meal will be safe as well as tasty.