The incident at IKEA’s food court
By Dr Ahmed Mohiuddin Siddiqui
For Sharanya Shetty, it was her first visit at IKEA Stores in the southern Indian city Bengaluru. Two of Sharanya’s friends and a son of one of the friends accompanied her to IKEA located at Nelamangala — Majestic Service Road, Manjunatha Nagar, Nagasandra, Bengaluru.
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After reaching the store in the morning, they did some shopping, and one of her friends said he would go and pick up some desserts from IKEA’s food court. Sharanya sat at a table at the food court having a chocolate cake.
Suddenly a rat fell from the ceiling unannounced! It was crazy and unbelievable for her. Everybody around her was eating and looking at the table while she was trying to find someone to do something about it. She called two cleaners and then another guy from Embassy group. That guy in turn called another lady from IKEA, who then went on to call somebody else. The musical chairs continued!
While she waited endlessly for someone to help, nobody from the store came to cordon off the area or at least cover the rat’s mortal remains. It is not known whether the rat was murdered by a cat or the rat committed suicide due to cats’ atrocities. The rat could have been respectfully moved away from the table for the last rites at the garbage bin.
Sharanya Shetty did not create a scene because there were way too many people, and it would have created havoc. So, she simply walked off to see what they would do, and what they did was terrible. There was no system in place. Children and babies were eating around and on the table kept in the same place!
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When the media tried calling the IKEA store they could not connect. The email sent regarding the incident, and the mail bounced from their media contact email ID. So much for IKEA’s communication skills! They sell furniture. Do they have dead wood in their brains? Why are they not media savvy? IKEA has casually apologized for the rat dropping dead incident where they boasted about their food hygiene standards! This must be the joke of the year.
Verily, this is not the first time IKEA Bengaluru has been accused of maintaining low hygiene standards. During investigation, it has been found that a person named Arjun Maniath left a review on Google Reviews six months ago stating that he found a fly on the Mango cake at IKEA.
In a sarcastic tone, he claimed “Mango cake made with delicious house fly.. unfortunately, I don’t eat house flies so missed the opportunity.. superb hygiene also.. please visit IKEA Bangalore for more…”
The Indian Government should take this matter seriously before it gets out of hand. IKEA should be shut down for two years for taking corrective measures. After two years, IKEA’s capabilities to run food courts should be assessed according to international standards. IKEA should be asked to deposit $5 billion with the Government of India as food safety and hygiene guarantee.
* Dr. Ahmed Mohiuddin Siddiqui is Consulting Editor for Foreign and Political Affairs, Maravi Express, Republic of Malawi, Africa
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