The Food Safety and Standards Authority of India(FSSAI) has sent a show cause notice to Swedish home furnishings giant IKEA and popular Indian food chain Haldiram’s after a customer allegedly found a caterpillar in the vegetable biryani served at IKEA’s Hyderabad store.

IKEA, which has set up its largest restaurant with 1,000 seats at its first India store at Hyderabad, sources packed food items from the local food vendor, and the biryani in question was sourced from Haldiram’s in Nagpur.

The show cause notice by FSSAI was issued after a team of five officers inspected the premises. The regulator also found a couple of other food security lapses at IKEA. However, Sudarshan Reddy is the food controller in-charge of Hyderabad and one of the five officers who inspected the IKEA premises. So, Sudarshan Reddy said: “We have sent show cause notices to IKEA and Haldiram’s. Also, our team has picked samples of the vegetable biryani along with samples of all other food products. We are awaiting a response from both the companies. After we get the sample analysis report from the laboratory, we will take action if required.”

“They were using plastics below 50 microns, which pose a major threat to the environment and are not allowed. Also, they were dumping wet and dry garbage in a common bin, which is against the food safety law,” He added.

In a statement, IKEA had said: “IKEA take food safety and quality very seriously and customer health is always a priority. Following an incident on 31 August 2018, when a customer encountered a foreign object in the dish he ordered, IKEA India has voluntarily stopped sales of two of its most appreciated products – vegetarian biryani and samosa, sourced locally in India.”