Hyderabad: Vegetable biryani served with caterpillar at IKEA store, firm fined Rs 11,500

Not even a month has passed that Swedish home furnishings retailer IKEA opened their first store in India, embarrassment followed. In a latest, a customer, Abeed Mohammad, alerted the Food Safety Officer with the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) after he found a caterpillar in the vegetable biryani that was served to him. Soon the GHMC fined Rs 11,500 on the firm.

Along with fine, the GHMC also issued a notice to the IKEA restaurant manager and also to Haldirams, the Nagpur vendor from which it procures food items. Mohammad, who visited the store in Hyderabad on Friday, posted the photograph of biryani with a caterpillar on Twitter. He 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

Following the tweet shared, GHMC officials reportedly visited the store and collected food samples for bacteriological analysis tests at a lab on Saturday, reports Indian Express. It is also known that IKEA own food safety team will also be visiting the Haldiram’s supplier at Nagpur.

Apologising for the fault, an IKEA spokesperson was quoted by The News Minutes as saying, “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.”

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