The gated warehouse had four large rooms beneath a tin roof.
Officials found nearly 5,000 cartons of consumer products, including PepsiCo's Lay's and Kurkure chips, Nestle's Maggi Masala Noodles, Unilever's Knorr Mushroom Soup and Hellmann's Mayonnaise, and Coca-Cola's Thums Up and Limca cans. Many of the Kurkure and Maggi packets, as well as the Thums Up cans, had their dates removed.
Inside the dirty warehouse, Reuters photographer Francis Mascarenhas saw a can of a chemical solvent that officials said was used to erase dates from the packets.
They said an operator would enter the fake expiry and manufacturing dates using a stylus on a computer screen. Workers would then use a machine fitted to a metal table, decorated with a tiny "I love my India" sticker, to allegedly print the new label on packaging and cans.
"The original date of manufacture and expiry date on the packaging of the food articles had been scratched out, erased ... (and) new information printed over them," the police document said.
The police case did not accuse any global companies of wrongdoing, but Mundhe called for supply chain accountability.
"Everybody needs to take this seriously. Companies have to abide with compliances and ensure that branding, packaging and sale is done as per regulations," he said.
Enforcement of food safety laws is weak in India. Food safety checks have long focused on adulteration, particularly of dairy products, when cases rise during festive seasons as demand for traditional Indian sweets surges.
Mundhe told Reuters his team found some packs were being reprinted with a future manufacturing date of October 2, 2026 inside the Mumbai warehouse.
Given foreign countries may have different labelling requirements and health guidelines, Reuters found dozens of Maggi cartons in the warehouse, with one sample showing a fake nutrition label pasted on top of a pack, making it export ready by describing it as a "Product of India".
One PepsiCo Kurkure pack had a nutrition label in English and French in a bilingual format.
The fake label reduced the quantity of cereal products in its ingredients by 10%, and tweaked the number of calories and serving size in an apparent move to align the labels with foreign regulations.
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