IKEA's Veg Biryani Came With A Side Of Worm, Says Man; Company Fined

Three weeks ago, the queues crawled as people made a beeline for the newly-opened IKEA showroom in Hyderabad. But last week, a customer claimed he found a different crawler in the in-house restaurant of the Swedish furniture giant's first Indian store.

A customer named Abeed Mohammad took to Twitter to complain about finding a caterpillar in the vegetable biryani served to him, on Friday morning. He also alerted and tagged the Hyderabad police, Telangana Minister for Municipal Administration and Urban Development K T Rama Rao, and IKEA Hyderabad in his post.

The Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) issued a notice to the firm and also imposed a fine of Rs. 11,500 for flouting norms related to waste segregation and use of plastic covers. Food safety officials also visited the store and collected food samples yesterday.

IKEA also faced ridicule on Twitter as customers lashed out



at them.

Responding to the tweet, IKEA apologized and in a statement said, "We apologize for the unfortunate experience. We are investigating the matter and will take immediate corrective action. At IKEA, we have the strictest guidelines when it comes to food quality as customer health and safety are something we care about deeply."

A food safety official however said that "IKEA representatives said they did not prepare the food in their kitchen and were procuring semi-cooked and frozen food from a Nagpur-based snack manufacturer."

IKEA is betting big on tempting the average Indian's taste buds after launching its biggest-ever restaurant inside an IKEA store and "possibly India's largest," as per its words. The massive 1,000-seater restaurant serves customers a wide range of food items consisting of staples from Swedish and Indian cuisine, from salmon to biryani, samosas and dal makhni.