Karnataka’s food safety regulator earlier this week ordered the suspension of the food licences of major e-commerce platforms Amazon, Swiggy, Instamart and BigBasket after officials found datura fruits and seeds being listed and sold online as food products. Datura contains highly toxic elements that can disrupt the nervous system.
The regulator said the products, some of which bore FSSAI registration or licence numbers, posed a serious public health risk. Mint explains the development
Datura is a highly toxic plant because it contains potent tropane alkaloids such as atropine, scopolamine and hyoscyamine, which can disrupt the nervous system. Even relatively small amounts can cause dry mouth, blurred vision, rapid heartbeat, confusion, agitation, hallucinations, seizures and dangerously high body temperature. Severe poisoning can lead to coma or death. The risk is particularly difficult to assess because the concentration of these compounds can vary across different parts of the plant and from one plant to another. There is no safe basis for treating datura fruits or seeds as an ordinary food ingredient, which is why their appearance in an online grocery catalogue is particularly concerning.
A food licence authorises a business to carry out the food-related activities covered by that licence. So, in principle, suspending a licence means those activities cannot continue while the suspension is in force. However, in this case, the Karnataka order does not specify the particular licence numbers, premises or operations covered for Amazon, Swiggy Instamart and BigBasket. That makes it difficult to conclude that the companies have been forced to stop all food sales across Karnataka. What is clear is that they have been ordered to remove the datura listings and stop selling or distributing the plant as food, and must submit compliance reports to the authorities.
The datura episode appears unusually serious, but there are precedents for online grocery/quick-commerce platforms being found with unsafe, expired, misbranded or non-compliant food products. In November 2025, Telangana food-safety officials inspected 75 warehouses operated by platforms such as Zepto, Blinkit, BigBasket, Swiggy Instamart, Amazon, and Flipkart. They seized 1,903 units of expired or misbranded food products and discarded stale cooked food and rotten vegetables. Last year, FSSAI met over 70 e-commerce food businesses and ordered them to strengthen food safety and hygiene practices. The Bureau of Indian Standards raided Amazon and Flipkart warehouses and seized products that lacked mandatory quality certification or bore allegedly fake labels.
Responsibility in this case does not necessarily sit with one party. FSSAI’s rules place obligations on both sellers and e-commerce food business operators: sellers must comply with food-safety requirements and display their licences, while platforms facilitating food transactions must have agreements requiring seller compliance, provide mandatory food information to consumers and delist products that do not comply with food-safety laws. The Karnataka action against Amazon, Swiggy Instamart and BigBasket over datura listings brings this distinction into focus: if the seller puts a poisonous product online, but the platform’s systems allow it to be listed, promoted and delivered to a consumer, where does the platform’s responsibility begin and end? The answer may depend on how the product was listed, what checks were performed and whether the platform had reason to know that it was being sold as food.
The rules in this case put the gap between documentary compliance and actual product-level screening under the spotlight. How does a platform actually establish that every product entering a vast, constantly changing online catalogue is safe and legally permissible to sell as food? A platform can verify a seller's FSSAI number and display information supplied by the seller, but that does not necessarily mean it has independently verified the identity, ingredients or intended use of every product. The datura case highlights a possible mismatch between a regulatory framework designed around identifiable food businesses and a digital marketplace where thousands of products can be added, modified and sold at speed.
Samiksha Goel is a Bengaluru‑based journalist at Mint with seven years of experience reporting on startups, venture capital and strategic business narratives. She specialises in investigative reporting and company strategy‑focused stories that go beyond surface‑level developments to unpack why and how companies evolve, pivot and compete. Samiksha has been among the first to chronicle major startup sagas, from early deep dives into the GoMechanic story to nuanced analyses of shifting dynamics between food‑tech platforms like Swiggy and their restaurant partners, bringing clarity to complex, fast‑moving markets.<br><br>Before joining Mint, she was at The Morning Context, where she produced long‑form investigative pieces on consumer internet startups. She began her journalism career with Deccan Herald and The New Indian Express, covering emerging ventures and the broader business ecosystem. Drawing on a background in philosophy, she brings analytical rigour and intellectual curiosity to her reporting.<br><br>Outside her professional work, Samiksha enjoys reading, especially historical fiction and magic realism, going on day treks from Bengaluru, exploring the city’s food scene, and experimenting with fun recipes in her kitchen. Her days are spent digging into startups, untangling company strategies, and occasionally getting lost on a walk by a Bengaluru lake, sometimes in that order.
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