The food service sector in India has recorded spectacular growth. The National Restaurant Association of India has projected that India’s food services sector will grow at a compound annual growth rate of 8.1% between 2024 and 2028 and touch the Rs . 7.76 lakh crore mark by 2028. The growth has also raised concerns about food safety, as growing food demand has pushed farmers to produce more and reduce pre-harvest losses through the application of higher quantities of fertilizer and pesticides. The Food Safety and Standards Authority of India’s (FSSAI) proposal to states to establish inter-departmental committees to focus on reducing pesticide use and developing strategies to control and regulate pesticide application at farmer level. The intervention can be more effective in Assam and other states in the Northeast region, as the Green Revolution bypassed the region and use of chemical fertilisers and pesticides is still low, although increasing use has already pressed the alarm bell. Driven by the growth of food aggregating businesses and the modern lifestyle of app-based food delivery at doorsteps, demand for growing more food by farmers and food processing has also increased in Guwahati and other cities and towns in the region. Growing demand for rice, vegetables, pulses, etc. to cater to the demand of food service sectors in the region has fuelled increasing chemical fertiliser and pesticide application to boost production. The residual pesticides have raised potential health risks for food consumers who prefer restaurant-made food, either served at restaurants or delivered at home, or street food to homemade food. The FSSAI has urged the states to submit proposals for establishing new microbiology laboratories to strengthen testing capabilities. FSSAI has also called for identification of key locations within the states where mobile labs—Food Safety on Wheels—can be deployed. These vans are equipped with testing equipment and rapid kits for quickly assessing food quality and safety parameters in line with FSSAI norms. As results are available within hours, it will enable the food safety authorities to quickly act in preventing the sale of any food with pesticide residues, which may cause potential health risks to consumers. The mobile laboratories also play a crucial role in raising consumer awareness about food safety. Management of these mobile labs needs to be planned meticulously. Many mobile medical vans, which were rolled out in Assam, lying idle for lack of required staff, funds, and replacement of faulty equipment, point towards inherent gaps in planning before their development. Providing services on mobile vans is a unique concept to fill the gap in service delivery in areas where the creation of stationary and permanent structures to deliver the same services has not been possible for dearth of funds and human resources. States having an adequate number of food safety officers is critical to the sustainability of mobile food testing laboratories. Availability of an adequate number of rapid testing kits is a must to keep the mobile laboratories functional and effective in achieving the goals. As preventing unsafe food is of paramount importance to public health, the States cannot afford to delay filling the vacancies of food safety officers and must consider the rapid growth in the food services business to review the ratio of food safety officers to the number of food outlets, including restaurants and street food vendors. Building awareness among consumers is equally important to ensure that food vendors sell only safe food and maintain food safety right from procurement of raw ingredients to cooking, serving, aggregating, and delivering at doorsteps. The States developing their own mobile food testing laboratories can enhance food testing capabilities and increase monitoring and vigil against the sale or delivery of unsafe food. A safer choice for consumers until a robust testing ecosystem is built is to reduce consumption of unhealthy food outside and develop the habit of eating home-made healthy food. Traditional kitchens in the region have developed culinary habits best suited to local climatic conditions. Promoting organic methods of growing paddy, pulses, and vegetables is another way of ensuring supply of safer raw food ingredients to restaurants and other food outlets. Traditional agricultural practice in the region is to produce food in an organic manner, depending on organic manure and biopesticides, but it cannot provide commercial-scale production for sustainable living when the number of dependents on the same plot of agricultural land grows. Commercial-scale production to meet market demand and make profit requires the use of hybrid and high-yielding varieties that require the application of chemical fertilisers and pesticides. Boosting production of organically grown food can be a pragmatic choice, as organic food fetches a premium price and its demand is increasing. Choices lie with the producers and consumers, but the role of the central and state governments and their agencies, like the FSSAI, Food Safety Department, in protecting consumers from consumption of unsafe food has grown manifold. The deployment of more mobile food laboratories can significantly improve food safety standards.