In the race for 10–20 minute grocery delivery, India’s quick-commerce boom has unleashed a network of so-called “dark stores”, which are small, warehouse-like outlets invisible to consumers but critical to ultrafast delivery. But behind the slick convenience apps lies a darker reality. Recent surprise inspections by regulators have exposed grotesque hygiene and safety lapses in these facilities, and delivery workers and warehouse staff describe a brutal, exploitative workplace. The list ranges from food safety violations and unlicensed operations to wage exploitation, grueling hours, and unsustainable loss-driven business tactics.
Unhygienic Havens: Regulatory Crackdowns Hit Zepto and Blinkit
Indian food regulators have started raiding dark stores with shocking results. In late May 2025 a Maharashtra FDA team, acting on ministerial orders, stormed Zepto’s Dharavi facility in Mumbai. The findings were chilling: inspectors found “visible fungal growth” on food stored near stagnant, dirty water; malfunctioning refrigeration failing to hold cold temperatures; wet, unclean floors with produce dumped on the ground; and expired items mixed in with fresh stock. The FDA immediately declared these “multiple breaches” of the Food Safety Act, labeling them a “clear risk to public health,” and suspended Zepto’s food business license on the spot.
Likewise, in Pune a Blinkit-affiliated dark store (operated by partner Energy Darkstore Services) was ordered shut in early June 2025 for flagrant non-compliance. The FDA found it was operating without any valid FSSAI license at all, despite storing and selling huge quantities of groceries. During the June 5 inspection, officials noted food items thrown on the floor, racks thick with dust, and cold rooms without required calibration certificates. Workers in the food area lacked basic hygiene (no hairnets, caps or protective gear), and crucial documents like pest-control audit certificates were missing. In short, regulators documented a laundry list of violations at each dark store.
These were not minor slip-ups but egregious breaches of fundamental safety rules. The Maharashtra FDA’s official reports detail how these “last-mile” warehouses blatantly violated Schedule 4 of the Food Safety Act (which mandates general hygienic practices). For instance, one Blinkit dark store was cited for “no traceability of distributed food items,” “unhygienic storage – food particles on the floor,” and “cold storage units lacking calibration documents,” among other failures. Given the “delicate shelf lives” and perishability of grocery items, these violations spell disaster.
Such findings have prompted immediate legal action. Zepto’s Dharavi outlet had its food license suspended indefinitely until all issues were rectified. Blinkit’s Baner-Balewadi warehouse was slapped with an official “stop business” order by the FDA. It was reported that regulators across Maharashtra are now on high alert, surveying hundreds of quick-commerce dark stores for similar problems. At least a dozen packaged-food brands have formally complained about “shoddy and unhygienic” conditions in dark stores, and both the FDA and the national FSSAI are promising routine surprise inspections. (Even India’s top food officials quietly admit this “spate of complaints” can no longer be ignored.)
These dark stores, hidden away in city suburbs, eschew the regulations that govern ordinary grocery stores. The results are disturbing and dangerous: consumers could easily receive contaminated food, yet neither platform nor warehouse takes adequate responsibility to prevent it. As one FDA officer warned, the violations at Zepto’s store posed a “clear risk to public health”. Shoppers using these apps have no way of knowing how their vegetables or milk were handled before they arrived, making the convenience increasingly suspect.
Exploitative Labor Practices: Inside the Dark Store Workforce
Beyond food safety, quick-commerce operations have a notorious dark side for workers. Delivery riders and warehouse pickers describe an intensely exploitative, high-pressure environment. Blind optimism about “job creation” crumbles in the face of their stories and the broader evidence: riders and store staff are treated as faceless cogs, paid barely enough, and pushed to extremes. A flurry of recent reports, worker protests, and expert analyses paint a bleak picture of life inside the dark store.
One investigative report on a Blinkit dark store worker’s Reddit post captures the grueling conditions. The worker describes cramped, cluttered warehouse aisles where pickers “run, not just walk,” racing to find items for each order. Every second counts: management clocks each picking operation on a strict timer (PPI – per picking item), penalizing any delay. If an item is misplaced or even a few seconds late, the worker is often told to log out and go home for the day.
This relentless pace leads to frequent mishaps of daily collisions between rushing pickers, broken goods, and even personal injuries. “Accidents happen almost daily because it’s all rush and no safety,” the worker recounts, noting one co-worker shattered a phone in a collision.
Full-time warehouse staff describe additional burdens: loading and unloading multiple large trucks each day, stocking cold rooms, and then immediately picking orders. They navigate narrow, unsafe passages for 10–12 hour shifts, often without any breaks or protective equipment. There is zero tolerance for error. The Reddit user notes that even a minor slowdown results in immediate termination.
In one quoted line: “Managers just pass pressure on to the workers,” and any slight delay triggers being sent home with no pay. In effect, quick commerce companies compress hazards into every minute of the job, as one worker laments: “All this effort, just so someone can get a Coke and Maggi in 10 minutes. This system isn’t built on efficiency, it’s built on pushing workers to their limits”.
Delivery riders face equally harsh realities on the road. Comedian-activist Kunal Kamra has publicly highlighted how 10-minute delivery promises turn riders into racing drivers with lives on the line. Industry analysts note that job insecurity and wages below minimum after expenses are endemic in this sector. A broad overview by labor experts confirms this pattern: India’s gig economy is “notorious” for exploiting young, unemployed workers, a demographic desperate for any income.
Reports document that many riders struggle to earn a living wage; incentive schemes are opaque, base pay is pitiful, and rising fuel costs are rarely factored in. No wonder there have been strikes: on April 26, 2025, around 150 Blinkit delivery partners in Varanasi downed tools to protest low wages and unsafe conditions. They demanded higher incentives, decent earnings, and basic facilities (like a shaded waiting area and proper uniforms), and were shockingly met with retaliation. Blinkit reportedly suspended the IDs of all 150 striking workers, effectively barring them from working, for daring to protest.
The structural flaws are stark: under India’s laws, these workers are classified as independent “partners,” not employees. They receive no social security, no labor protections, and no union representation. As one commentator put it, platform owners exploit this grey zone: “They aren’t creating jobs; they do nothing but exploit gig workers”. The International Labour Organization warns that rapid expansion of gig work in India remains informal and bereft of any worker welfare norms. In practice this means a young picker or rider has no health insurance, no paid leave, and no guarantee of minimum pay. All power lies with the corporation. Delivery timelines (often touted as ultrafast) are unrealistic and dangerously enforced, turning highways into hazardous raceways.
Workers’ testimonies bring the nightmare into focus. In tightly-packed dark stores, accidents are common. Exhausted riders, zipping through traffic, risk far worse. One gig worker’s social media account notes dozens of colleagues have suffered crashes chasing deadlines.
Mental fatigue and stress are endemic: being constantly timed, shouted at, and threatened with deactivation “takes a mental toll” that far outweighs the meager pay. Summarizing this hidden toll, a frontline worker asks, rhetorically: “All this stress, just so someone can get groceries in 10 minutes? If deliveries took 15 or 20 minutes instead, would that really be so bad?” This eloquent question goes straight to the heart of the issue; at what cost to human beings is this holy grail of speed being achieved?
These patterns echo across companies. Quick commerce is effectively built on the backs of vulnerable, poorly-treated workers, with little regard for their safety or dignity. Labor experts observe that India’s new gig platforms refuse accountability: “They have no binding labour laws,” one NGO notes, as workers have no written contracts and no recourse to grievance redressal. Meanwhile, the Ministry of Commerce is taking notice: in 2024 a workers’ forum wrote to the government detailing exactly these abuses; “poor conditions of the delivery partners” and no healthcare or insurance for riders. The government quietly promised to form a supervisory committee and start audits, but on the ground little has changed yet.
Unsustainable Economics: Cash Burn, Discounts and Logistics Chaos
The business model powering these dark stores is as grim as their floors. The quick-commerce market is a classic cash-burning war: companies lure customers with steep discounts, freebie coupons, and aggressive marketing, all subsidized by venture capital money. In practice they spend massively on inventory, warehousing, and riders to capture market share, with profits nowhere in sight. Independent analysts and investors now openly warn: this model is not sustainable.
TVS Capital Funds chair Gopal Srinivasan bluntly called India’s quick-commerce frenzy a “passing fad,” fueled solely by PE/VC funding, lacking any long-term economic viability. Major players bleed cash: for instance, Zepto’s latest filings reveal it earned ₹4,454 crore in FY24 but spent ₹5,747 crore, a 71% jump in costs. This colossal spending only sliced its losses marginally (about ₹1,249 crore).
Nearly 60% of Zepto’s outlay went to procuring goods for its network of over 550 dark stores, plus hundreds of crores on technology, advertising, warehousing, and delivery expenses. In short, Zepto spent more money than it made to gain every rupee of revenue. Likewise, Swiggy’s Instamart arm has shown widening losses: Wall Street analysts note it cumulatively expects over $1.2 billion of cash burn and operating losses in the next few years before even breaking even.
This spending frenzy is not unique to Zepto or Blinkit. Across the sector, platforms are locking in losses via red-ink promotions. E-commerce brands report having to offer ₹50–₹100 off every order, free delivery and loyalty credits, simply to keep customers from reverting to traditional stores or larger platforms. Industry data now shows every quick-commerce company (owned by giants like Zomato, Swiggy, Amazon, Flipkart or backed by venture firms) is losing money on each delivery, counting on scale and eventual profitability. The real casualty of this race is logic: vast logistics networks (thousands of small warehouses, fleets of riders) have been built without a clear path to profit.
India’s food safety and consumer affairs watchdogs are already mobilizing to rein in the dark store experiment. In late 2024 the FSSAI issued new guidance to all quick-commerce platforms, demanding that listed food items have at least 30% shelf life remaining (45 days out), delivery staff be trained in hygiene, and even mandating medical check-ups for riders.
These measures were a direct reaction to mounting complaints about rotten or tampered goods. Packaged food manufacturers have also grown vocal: dozens of brands (Britannia, KRBL, HUL, ITC, etc.) have quietly urged strict “first-in-first-out” protocols and hygiene checks, even alerting regulators when e.g. incense sticks were found mingling with frozen snacks in a dark store. Their message is clear: maintain strict standards or risk ruining decades of brand trust.
On the labor front, even the Commerce Ministry has conceded the gig work problem. After receiving a letter from the Forum for Progressive Gig Workers in India (August 2024), officials acknowledged “concerns over the exploitation of gig workers” in quick commerce. The letter, by convenor K. Narasimhan, detailed poor delivery conditions and negligent quality control.
The response from ministers hinted at forming oversight committees to monitor deliveries and enforce rules. (Union minister Piyush Goyal has warned of predatory pricing in e-commerce spreading, a rare public critique of the model.) In other words, regulators are considering a multi-agency crackdown: FSSAI and FDA are ramping up store inspections nationwide, while commerce and consumer ministries probe the broader impact on mom-and-pop Kirana shops.
Urban policy experts, though not yet prominently quoted in the media, have reason to be alarmed. These dark stores often operate in densely populated neighborhoods, violating zoning norms and dumping excess traffic and waste in residential areas. Public health advocates note that converting city plots into unregulated packing warehouses, where rodents and bacteria can thrive, undermines municipal oversight designed for open markets. Labour economists likewise caution that this exploitative model generates social costs (accident injuries, transport burden, informal labor growth) not reflected on any balance sheet. In short, every civic and policy lens finds trouble with how dark stores are rolling out.
At the end: Unmasking the Dark Side of Convenience
India’s quick-commerce revolution was sold as a magical leap in retail. Yet the evidence compiled by officials and insiders exposes a far nastier reality, one of dark patterns indeed. Behind those friendly app logos lie warehouses rife with filth and decay, and gig-economy gladiators stripped of rights. Customers may get their masalas in 15 minutes, but they shouldn’t mistake that speed for virtue. The true cost, in public health risk, in shattered worker lives, in a business model that burns through money, is being laid bare by relentless reporting and regulatory action.
This deep-dive has shown that every claim of “safe, reliable ultrafast service” hides a troubling truth. For Zepto, Blinkit, Swiggy Instamart, BigBasket Now and their ilk, the luxury of convenience came at a hidden, horrifying price. As regulators clamp down and consumers become wary, the industry may finally have to choose: clean up its act – from the storage shelves to the pay slips – or face the reckoning that accompanies dark patterns unmasked.
