T
hese are two of the most elite addresses in Delhi, both situated in Aerocity, and have been earmarked to welcome foreign VIPs in less than two weeks' time.
According to food regulator FSSAI, it had issued notices to five-star hotels JW Marriott and Juniper Hotels, which owns Andaz chain of hotels, located at Aerocity for serious breaches of law related to hygiene, including cockroach infestation around freezers.
This is not an ordinary compliance matter, given that both hotels have been confirmed to host foreign VIPs who will attend the BRICS summit, to be held in Delhi on September 12-13.
The inspection at the Andaz was done on June 22 and found many deficiencies.
According to FSSAI, there were some serious issues of food safety and hygiene noted, which include wrong segregation of vegetarian and non-vegetarian foods, pests, sanitation problems, lack of food handler hygiene, and food storage issues.
These facts are quite alarming. The officials found expired foods, such as approximately 87 kg of expired sweets, expired cake base, and bread packets bearing expired stickers, and the sweets were destroyed in the same place.
There were also found live cockroaches close to the freezers, houseflies and mosquitoes in the grinding room, and both vegetarian and non-vegetarian chopping boards stored in the same water tub.
If the inspection at Andaz was poor, then that of JW Marriott was even poorer in terms of sheer quantity.
Inspection of JW Marriott New Delhi, conducted on August 24 & 25, revealed that there were 59 deficiencies noted, which is significantly more than what was observed in case of Andaz.
These deficiencies included almost all aspects of food handling. Licensing & labeling deficiencies, presence of a particle in the water used at K3, presence of cockroaches in the Indian kitchen & bakery kitchen and fruit flies in the vegetable section.
The specific observations included some that verged on the ridiculous. One such observation included the presence of a label "juice" in a box containing prawns, whereas the box containing juice had a label that read "prawns."
Apart from these problems, there have been other areas of operational negligence at the JW Marriott.
Some of these problems include leftover food on cleaned utensils, hair in a pot, overflow and improper placement of dustbins, faulty equipment, cracked tiles, and leaking water in the refrigerators and freezers.
Also, the issue of employee hygienic behavior was brought into focus. Several employees were seen handling food products without wearing hairnets or gloves, while one particular employee had his hand injury in the kitchen and was seen preparing food — which is certainly a food hazard by itself.
Also, there were problems of rotten apples and tomatoes in the storeroom, as well as deterioration in the water bottling tanks.
Apart from taking note of all the violations made by their naked eyes, the sampling teams sent samples from both the hotel for laboratory testing.
Amongst other samples collected for regulatory and surveillance tests are cow ghee, veg mayonnaise, creamy coconut milk powder, honey twigs, yellow masoor dal, tomato sauce, orange marmalade, and coconut cookies.
In addition, water, paneer, khoya, and rasmalai samples have also been collected from Andaz. This shows that the regulatory body does not depend upon its visible inspection findings alone.
The consequences go far beyond just hygiene compliance since both hotels will be hosting important delegates for an international summit in a few days.
These two hotels have been booked to house the delegates from other countries who will be coming for the BRICS Summit, hence the food safety concerns are not only important from a hygiene perspective but also from a diplomatic angle; failure by a delegation from another country will definitely make much more impact than that from a domestic source.
Both hotels have been instructed by FSSAI to rectify their shortcomings before the summit is held.
This is not a one-off case of punishing two hotels, but rather the latest in a long line of FSSAI action that has been going on for months throughout the Indian food business in 2026.
FSSAI has already compelled Marico, Emami, Heritage Foods and others to change their labels, which were deceptive earlier this year, and has destroyed kilograms of contaminated paneer in raids in Noida, Jaipur, Ghaziabad and Gujarat – all signs that FSSAI is tightening its grip over manufacturers, retailers, and now also premium hospitality establishments.
The fact that five-star hotels like those of JW Marriott and Andaz are now receiving notice in a similar way as the branded packaged food companies, shows that the FSSAI is no longer taking luxury into consideration while enforcing its rules.
Problems of poor hygiene have been in the news time and again at various premium travel and hospitality brands in India up to 2026, with the problem no longer confined only to hotels but to airlines too.
Air India too had an episode of its own recently in the form of cockroaches found on a flight, with the airline having to move passengers and apologize publicly along with conducting an investigation — one of several complaints of poor hygiene and maintenance that Air India has been receiving throughout the year, with another instance of cockroaches being found in an omelet in a Delhi to New York flight.
It is clear that if these types of problems continue happening in India's premium travel and hospitality industry, then it is an industry-wide problem and not just a problem with Aerocity alone.
The process has moved to the stage where samples have been sent to FSSAI’s laboratory system, and the hotel is faced with a deadline for taking corrective measures before the September 12-13 BRICS Summit.
It remains to be seen how far FSSAI would go from warning to suspension of license or imposing fines depending on what the lab test findings would reveal, and whether the re-inspection before the BRICS Summit would confirm any improvements.
