Swedish home furnishing giant IKEA was fined Rs 11,500 on Saturday after a customer allegedly found a caterpillar in a plate of vegetable biryani served at its store in Hyderabad, The Indian Express reported.
Abeed Mohammad tweeted about the incident, which took place on Friday, and notified the food safety officer of the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation.
On Saturday, a team of GHMC officials visited the restaurant at Hi-Tech City for an inspection. Representatives of the store admitted that an insect was found in the food, The Hindu quoted an unnamed officer as saying. “However, they had shown proof that the food was not prepared at their kitchen, but was flown in from Haldiram’s of Nagpur, with whom they had tied up for food supply,” the officer said.
The team gathered food samples for bacteriological analysis tests and imposed a fine of Rs 11,500. The store was also penalised Rs 15,000 for not complying with waste segregation and plastic use norms. The officials issued a notice to the restaurant manager as well as to Haldiram’s Nagpur vendor.
The leftover portion of the biryani was quarantined by IKEA, which will send its own food safety team to the Nagpur supplier for an inspection.
IKEA India apologised for the incident. “We regret the incident and apologise to our customer for the unfortunate experience,” a spokesperson said, according to The News Minute. “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.”
On August 9, IKEA opened its first store in India, with a 4 lakh sq ft showroom spread across 13 acres on the outskirts of Hyderabad. The company plans to set up 25 stores across the country by 2025.
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