FSSAI cites pests and expired sweets at two Aerocity hotels booked for BRICS

India’s food regulator has issued notices to JW Marriott Hotel New Delhi Aerocity and Andaz Delhi after inspections that found expired stock, pests and hygiene failures at two five-star properties chosen to house guests for the BRICS Summit on 12 and 13 September.

FSSAI posted the findings on 26 August. At Andaz, operated by Juniper Hotels, inspectors recorded improper separation of vegetarian and non-vegetarian food, pest activity, weak sanitation, poor food-handler hygiene and bad storage. They found about 87 kg of expired sweets, an expired cake base and expired bread packets. The sweets were thrown out on the spot. Officers described cockroaches near freezers, houseflies, mosquitoes in a grinding room, spider webs, and a gutka packet in a bottling area. Bread packs carried a second date mark over an expired one. Chillers sat between two bathrooms with exhaust blowing into the cold room.

Samples taken at Andaz included cow ghee, vegetarian mayonnaise, creamy coconut milk powder, honey twigs, yellow masoor dal, tomato sauce, orange marmalade and coconut cookies.

At JW Marriott, a unit of Aria Hotels and Consultancy Services, FSSAI said the hotel was retailing and relabelling food, including items under the JW Marriott brand, without the right endorsements on its licence. Inspectors listed 59 deficiencies. Those included pest activity, refrigeration that did not hold temperature, overflowing bins, uncovered food, damaged containers, fungal growth on apples, rotten tomatoes, paneer, khoya and chana masala without a licence available for verification, and a visible particle in drinking water served to guests.

Andaz said in a statement that an FSSAI inspection in June 2026 had already produced observations, that the hotel had tightened practices and filed a compliance reply, and that guest and staff safety remains its priority. JW Marriott said it keeps strict food-safety standards, is cooperating with local authorities and will act on the findings.

The timing is the political fact. Aerocity sits next to the airport that will bring heads of government into Delhi for BRICS. Hotels on that strip are the default rooms for delegations. A regulator posting cockroaches and 87 kg of expired sweets three weeks before the summit puts the hotels, the city administration and the external affairs ministry on the same clock.

FSSAI has asked for immediate corrective work and a compliance report. It has not announced a licence suspension. The samples are in the lab. If those tests fail, the notices become prosecution files. If they pass, the photographs and the 87 kg still sit on the regulator’s social feed.

Five-star kitchens are supposed to be the easiest places in the city to keep clean. The inspection notes read like a street-stall file: double dating, pests at the freezer, a toilet vent into a chiller. That gap, not the brand names, is why the notices will follow the hotels into the summit week.