IKEA Hyderabad fined Rs 11,500 after customer finds caterpillar in food; firm issues apology, says matter is being investigated

A customer at the IKEA store in Hyderabad allegedly found a caterpillar in his food on Friday, following which the the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) fined the store management Rs 11,500, according to media reports. The customer, Abeed Mohammad had tweeted a picture of the worm he found in his Veg Biryani and alerted the Food Safety Officer at GHMC.

The municipal corporation has now issued a notice to the IKEA restaurant manager and its Nagpur vendor-Haldirams, from where they procure their food items, said  The Indian Express . India Today reported that on Saturday, GHMC’s Food Safety Officer, food inspector of special zone and Assistant Medical Officer of Health (AMOH) along with other officials collected food samples for bacteriological analysis and quarantined the remaining Veg Biryani. IKEA’s food safety team team is also expected to visit Haldirams and investigate the matter, reported The Indian Express . Mumbai Mirror quoted an IKEA spokesperson who 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.” The first IKEA store in India opened on 9 August, five years after IKEA received government approval in 2013 to invest Rs 10,500 crore to open 25 stores in India by 2025. Its next store will open in Navi Mumbai in 2019, followed by Bengaluru and Delhi. In the next phase, IKEA would cover Ahmedabad, Surat, Pune, Chennai, and Kolkata.