After Bengaluru hotel raids, survey finds 9 in 10 diners report seeing hygiene violations

A recent survey in Bengaluru has revealed that 94% of diners have witnessed at least one food safety or hygiene violation in air-conditioned restaurants within the past year. This finding comes after the Karnataka Food Safety and Drug Administration (KFSDA) conducted inspections in 60 three- and five-star hotels in Bengaluru Urban district, seizing hundreds of kilograms of expired, rotten or improperly stored food.

The survey, conducted by the community-based platform LocalCircles, polled 9,861 respondents who had visited air-conditioned restaurants in Bengaluru at least once in the past year. The majority of issues reported by diners included unhygienic food handling (32%), heating or serving food in plastic containers (31%), dirty dining areas, kitchens or washrooms (29%), and reuse of cooking oil (29%).

Other concerns included stale or repeatedly reheated food (21%), poor separation of vegetarian and non-vegetarian food (23%), and pests such as cockroaches, rats, and flies (17%). When asked about their concerns when eating out, 77% of respondents prioritized pest control, followed by dirty kitchens (74%), expired or improperly stored ingredients (71%), poor staff hygiene (64%), and unsafe plastic containers for heating food (61%).

Despite these concerns, 45% of diners rated the hygiene and food safety standards of restaurants as good or excellent, while 34% rated them as good and 11% as excellent. The majority (81%) of respondents supported stricter enforcement, calling for licence suspensions in cases of serious violations. Other measures supported by a significant majority included public disclosure of hygiene ratings (76%), quarterly inspections and public reporting of violations (76%), and higher penalties for repeat offenders (65%).