A month into its India launch, Swedish home furniture giant IKEA had its first brush with controversy when a Telangana man accused the store at Hyderabad of serving a caterpillar in his vegetable biryani.
The man, identified as Abeed Muhammad, took to Twitter to air his grievance and tagged Hyderabad police, Minister for Industry & Commerce, Municipal Administration & Urban Development KTR, IKEA Hyderabad, among others. He also uploaded a picture of the food which had a caterpillar on the plate and the bill that he was charged.
“#Ikeahyderbad Today I found caterpillar in my veg biryani. Very unfair of food @TV9Telugu @KTRTRS sir @hydcitypolice @THHyderabad @Abnandhrajyothi,” wrote Muhammad.
The customer also filed a complaint in Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC).
Taking cognisance of the tweet by the man, GHMC officials carried out inspections in the kitchen and food courts of the store. The officials found violations which included usage of plastic of less than 50 microns. Subsequently, the store was fined Rs 11,500.
The IKEA management later apologised to the customer.
“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,” Bangalore Mirror quotes an IKEA spokesperson as saying.
The municipal corporation, however, has issued notices to the IKEA restaurant manager as well as to the veg biryani vendor, Haldiram at Nagpur. It is learnt that IKEA procures prepared veg biryani from Haldiram.