Swedish home furnishings retailer IKEA started its operations in India in July and just after one and a half-month of its opening, it has been fined for Rs 11, 500.
Apparently, a customer named Abeed Mohammad found a caterpillar in his vegetable biryani that was served to him. The customer informed about the incident to the Food Safety Officer with the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC), which levied a fine of Rs 11,500 on IKEA.
The notice is issued to the IKEA restaurant manager as well as to Haldirams, the Nagpur vendor from which it procures food items.
The incident took place on Friday, after which Mohammed posted about it on Twitter with a photo of the insect and bill. He also tagged the Minister for Municipal Administration and Urban Development KT Rama Rao in the tweet.
#Ikeahyderbad Today I found caterpillar in my veg biryani. Very unfair of food @TV9Telugu @KTRTRS sir @hydcitypolice @THHyderabad @Abnandhrajyothi pic.twitter.com/jumiED25fs
— Abeed Mohammad (@abeedmohammed9) August 31, 2018
Reportedly, GHMC officials, on Saturday, visited the store to collect food samples which they have send to bacteriological analysis tests at a lab. Also, the IKEA’s own food safety team will visit the Haldiram’s supplier at Nagpur.
As per a The News Minutes report, An IKEA spokesperson apologised for the incident said, “We regret the incident and apologise to our customer for the unfortunate experience. We would like to assure him and everyone else that we are investigating the matter currently to assess what happened and take immediate corrective action. At IKEA, we have the strictest guidelines when it comes to food safety and quality as customer health and safety are something we care about deeply.”
According to a report in The Hindu, during the inspection, it was also found that IKEA is not adhering to waste segregation norms and the store is using plastic covers of less than 50 microns’ thickness.
People on Twitter are quite fumed after the incident, check out some of the reactions here:
Yesterday was me, tommorow someone will get worms, everytime unfortunate only right?
— Abeed Mohammad (@abeedmohammed9) September 1, 2018
Disgusting!!!! IKEA well done.. Superb maintenance!!!!
— Kiran (@Kiran79139132) August 31, 2018
WTF.. don’t they have good processing manager? Didn’t expect this from global giant
— Prabu (@asmiprabu) September 1, 2018
Please conduct surprise inspection at most of the known food joints. Also please check on the MRP of the water bottle in the invoice. Looks like a good case of differential pricing of similar product.
— Kumar Ankit (@ankit_gnlu) September 2, 2018
Its very unfortunate . Most of the MNC food chains don’t care about health safety . Its usual nowadays getting dis kind of news . @IKEAIndia
— SMARTSHAN (@smartshan_87) September 2, 2018
Well hats off to your presence of mind. Didn’t expected from Biryani City of India.
— DEBA (@imdeba0007) September 2, 2018
