If you walk through any busy market or local discounted bazaar, you will notice something very interesting on the shelves of small corner shops, inside local kiosks, or spread out on the ground, selling branded cooking oil and tea packs. coffee, and various cosmetic items etc. If you look closer, you will see the expiration date is just a few days away, or it has already passed. And occasionally, the barcodes are scratched out, or the plastic wrapping looks dusty from sitting too long in a dark warehouse.
Behind the scenes, a hidden underground market exists for near-expiry and damaged consumer goods. Every day, factories produce millions of items like snacks, shampoos, sauces and so many items. Due to overproduction or delivery delays, warehouses fill with products nearing their expiration dates. Legally, companies are required to destroy all these products, but due to avoid extra costs, private brokers and middlemen step in quickly. They buy entire products cheap cash, asking zero questions to keep this secret underground network completely alive today
These goods bypass upscale stores and end up in dusty wholesale markets. To a regular buyer, it looks like a jackpot discount, but it is a system driven purely by financial survival. Inflation is brutal these days; prices for basic groceries, cooking oil, and other household items go up every day, pushing household budgets to the edge. A daily-wage worker or a middle-class family can’t simply ignore a 50% discount on a famous brand of washing powder, tea, oil or other grocery products just because the box says it expired or nearly expired few days.
Buying these items from street vendors offers zero consumer protection. While old dry biscuits might just taste stale, items like dairy, processed foods, medicines, and cosmetics spoil very quickly in the heat. When these goods sit in unventilated warehouses or under the sun, they turn rancid fast. Eating spoiled food over time slowly ruins your digestion and long- term health.at the same time, expired cosmetics and face creams break down, growing hidden bacteria and mols that cause severe skin rashes and infections. If you buy bad products from a street vendor, you have no way to complain. Unlike shopping at a big supermarket where u get a receipt and customer support, buying cheap goods leaves you completely unprotected.
This issue doesn’t stop packages from goods. Look at the local pushcart (pheri wala) selling fruits and vegetables in our streets. Have you ever wondered why their fruit is so much cheaper than the fruit in a proper fruit shop? Just like the packaged good market, these street vendors often buy the cheapest, reject-grade stock from the main wholesale fruit market (mandis). The stock includes bruised, overripe, or half-rotten fruit that regular shopkeepers refuse to buy; to make matters worse, many unscrupulous traders use harmful chemicals like calcium carbide to artificially ripen fruits. When working-class families buy these cheap fruits from pushcarts, they might think they are eating healthily, but they are often consuming fruit that has lost its nutritional value or is contaminated.
How can this situation be fixed? What regulatory steps should the government take to regain control and safeguard public health?
First, the government must tighten regulations for large manufacturers and wholesale distributors to strictly monitor the disposal of near-expiry stock. Rather than permitting bulk sales to illegal brokers, authorities should establish a legal framework. Safe products, such as dry goods, can be tested and sold at heavily subsidized rates through official government discount stores. This proactive approach prevents waste, ensures proper oversight, and safeguards public health.
Second, food authority inspectors need to crack down heavily on the illegal secondary market agents who dump expired products into poor neighborhoods. Heavy fines and licensee cancellation should apply to shops selling expired baby food, dairy or medicines.
Third, regarding street vendors and pushcart fruit and vegetable sellers, the local administration must step in with practical regulations instead of just chasing pushcart owners away in anti-encroachment drives, which hurt poor livelihoods. The government should register them, issue them health cards, and provide designated, clean vending spots. Food safety authorities must regularly inspect the main wholesale mandis to stop the use of dangerous chemicals like calcium carbide at the root level. Mobile food testing labs should randomly check pushcarts in different areas to ensure that the fruits being sold to common citizens are safe, clean and chemically free.
cheap street markets and pushcarts remain essential because they are a true lifeline for working class families during tough economics time. With high inflation and rising prices, everyday people are forced to stretch every rupee just to survive, often buying lower-quality goods out of pure necessity. While health and safety should never be compromised. These budget markets will exist until the government stabilizes the economy and fixes the gap between real wages and living costs. ultimately protecting public health requires active government intervention, fair food distribution, and honest quality checks.
Author is associated with SDPI
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