Hyderabad food safety crackdown: 19 cafes inspected, expired stock and hygiene lapses detected

TG-SAFE (Telangana Standards Authority for Food and Essential Drugs) shut two Hyderabad cafes and suspended the FSSAI licence of a third on 3 September 2026, after nine enforcement teams found food safety violations across 19 cafes and snack points in the city's core urban region.

The drive covered a wide spread of neighbourhoods. Dreamz Cafeteria at Bagh Lingampally and Asiatic Café at Panjagutta were closed for operating without valid FSSAI licences or registrations. Shadab Hotel at the Madina building had its FSSAI licence suspended and was directed to stop operations immediately after inspectors found multiple failures in hygiene, sanitation, and the storage of meat and other food articles. Twelve other establishments, including Café Persia, Bahar Biryani Café, Café Deccan, Honeymoon Café, Rio Restaurant, Aromale Hospitality, Friends and Café, Diamond Point Hotel, Hotel Imroz, Blue Sea Tea and Snacks, Nimra Café and Bakery, and Gulzar Foods (which operates Persis Café), received improvement notices and face re-inspection to verify compliance. Show-cause notices are going to Golden Café, Dreamz Cafeteria, Mirosa Café and Kitchen (Fyra Foods), Asiatic Café, and Shadab Hotel, with penalties possible depending on subsequent findings.

What the inspectors actually found

The violations fall into four broad categories, and none of them are minor paperwork issues.

First, pest and sanitation failures: open dustbins, littering, housefly and cockroach infestation, and food handlers working without headgear. These conditions create direct contamination pathways from pests to food.

Second, expired and spoiled stock: perishable items exposed to dust and flies were discarded on the spot by TG-SAFE officials. The presence of expired products in active service areas, rather than in a storage room awaiting disposal, suggests routine rather than accidental lapse.

Third, adulteration suspicion: 15 samples of tea powder, ginger-garlic paste, and biscuits were seized and sent for laboratory analysis. Results have not been published yet. FSSAI's food testing protocols under the Food Safety and Standards Act, 2006 require labs to return findings within 14 days for most categories, so results should be available by mid-September 2026.

Fourth, missing documentation: several establishments could not produce FoSTaC (Food Safety Training and Certification) certificates for their handlers, health records for staff, or pest-control documentation. FoSTaC training is mandatory under FSSAI's Food Safety and Standards (Food Business Operator) Regulations for at least one trained person per food business. Its absence at multiple sites points to a compliance gap that predates this inspection.

Why this matters for anyone eating out in Hyderabad

This is the second TG-SAFE restaurant sweep reported in recent weeks. A previous raid on seven Hyderabad restaurants found similar violations, which suggests the problems are not isolated to a handful of bad actors.

For people who follow specific dietary requirements, whether vegan, Jain, or allergen-restricted, the documentation failures are particularly relevant. If a kitchen cannot produce pest-control records or staff health certificates, there is no reliable paper trail for ingredient sourcing or cross-contamination controls either. A café that skips FoSTaC training is also less likely to have staff who understand allergen segregation or the difference between animal-derived and plant-derived fats.

The FSSAI licence is the baseline. Under the Food Safety and Standards (Licensing and Registration of Food Businesses) Regulations, 2011, any food business with an annual turnover above Rs 12 lakh must hold a central or state licence; smaller operators need at minimum a registration. Operating without either is a criminal offence under Section 63 of the FSS Act, carrying up to six months imprisonment and a fine up to Rs 5 lakh. Dreamz Cafeteria and Asiatic Café were in this category.

The suspension of Shadab Hotel's licence at the Madina building is a harder penalty. A suspension means the business cannot legally operate until TG-SAFE lifts it, which typically requires a physical re-inspection confirming corrective action.

What you should do before your next café visit

Verifying an FSSAI licence takes about 30 seconds. The FSSAI FoSCoS portal lets anyone search a business by name or licence number. If a café's licence does not appear, or if the licence shown on the wall has expired, that is a concrete red flag, not a minor technicality.

Beyond the licence check, a few things are visible from a customer's position. Open dustbins near food prep areas, staff handling food without headgear or gloves, and flies around display cases are all violations that TG-SAFE cited in this sweep. You do not need a food safety certificate to notice them.

For the 15 samples currently under adulteration testing, the products in question are tea powder, ginger-garlic paste, and biscuits. These are staples used across hundreds of Hyderabad kitchens. Common adulterants in ginger-garlic paste include starch fillers and artificial colour; in tea powder, the adulterants range from exhausted tea leaves to sawdust. Until TG-SAFE publishes the lab results, the specific establishments and products involved remain under suspicion rather than confirmed. Watch the TG-SAFE official communications for the findings.

If you spot a violation at a food outlet, FSSAI's consumer complaint portal at https://foscos.fssai.gov.in/ accepts public reports. TG-SAFE also takes complaints through the Telangana government's grievance channels. Filing a complaint creates a paper record that enforcement teams can act on, which is more useful than a social media post that disappears in 48 hours.