Insect in my chocolate cake, says man at IKEA, company fined

Swedish furniture major IKEA’s first ever store in India in Hyderabad again landed in controversy after a customer who bought a chocolate cake from the store’s food outlet complained of an insect in it.

The customer, Kishore, tweeted on September 12 that he had found an insect in the chocolate cake which he had bought for his daughter at the food counter in the IKEA outlet. Ikea on Thursday apologised to the customer and assured steps to prevent any recurrence of any such incidents.

This is the second such incident that happened at the Ikea Hyderabad store that was opened on August 9. On September 2, a customer reported a caterpillar in the vegetable biryani supplied to him. Ikea India subsequently took vegetable biryani and samosa off its menu and apologised to the customer.

Ikea had taken off Vegetable Biryani off the menu after a man complained of finding a caterpillar in the dish served to him at the Hyderabad store. (HT Photo)

Acting on the latest tweet, the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) slapped Rs 5,000 as fine on the IKEA India management. In the earlier instance, it imposed a fine of Rs 11,500 on the firm.

On Thursday, Ikea regretted the latest episode too. “In our Hyderabad restaurant when a customer was eating a chocolate cake which he bought, a fly was seen on the cake which eventually flew away. We regret this and apologize to our customer for the unfortunate experience. We are taking steps to avoid such occurrences,” a spokesperson said.

A GHMC health official said samples of the cakes were collected for lab test.

In the earlier instance of caterpillar in biryani, the GHMC served notice to both Ikea and its Nagpur-based food supplier, Haldirams.