DAYS after a resident of Mumbai found a piece of flesh, suspected to be of a human finger, in an ice-cream cone, the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) conducted an inspection at the premises of Fortune Dairy Industries, the third party manufacturer of the ice cream, in Indapur taluka of Pune and has stopped the facility’s operation.
On Wednesday, 26-year-old Brandon Ferrao, a Mumbai based doctor, had filed a complaint with Malad police station after he found a piece of flesh with a nail in a Yummo’s butterscotch ice cream of the parent company Walko QSR Company Pvt Ltd, which he had ordered through delivery app Zepto.
The premises of the Fortune Dairy Industries wore a deserted look, with its operations having been ordered to stop in the early hours of Saturday following an inspection by the FSSAI that started on Friday.
The production unit is located around 130 kilometres from Pune city in the industrial cluster of Maharashtra Industrial Development Corporation (MIDC) in Loni Deokar area of Indapur taluka of Pune district. Mumbai police ahd earlier said that they were investigating the supply chain from the delivery executive to the third party manufacturer.
A declaration by Walko QSR Company Pvt Ltd on Saturday read, “We, Walko QSR Company Private Limited, hereby confirm & declare that the Batch Number 107E24 for Alphonso Mango Cone (110ml) and Batch Number I11E24 for Butterscotch Cone (110ml) are manufactured by Fortune Dairy Industries Private Limited at its plant located at Plot Number C-55, MIDC Indapur, Maharashtra, Pune-413106.”
An officer from Indapur police station, which has jurisdiction over the area where the Fortune Dairy Industries is located, said, “We are aware of the ongoing investigation by the Malad police. As of now we do not have any reports or information about any person having sustained an injury or having lost any finger in our jurisdiction.”
On the condition of anonymity, a staffer at Fortune Dairy Industries said, “Our company has a manufacturing licence from the central agency FSSAI since we supply to entities across India. On Friday afternoon, a team from the FSSAI arrived at the facility and citing the FIR registered at Malad police station, they conducted an inspection and a panchnama of our unit. The inspection went on (till) early Saturday morning, after which they ordered that operation at the facility be stopped.” The Indian Express tried to contact office bearers at the Fortune Dairy Industries, but none could be reached.
The action was conducted by the Mumbai based Western Regional unit of FSSAI. On Saturday afternoon a team from Mumbai police visited the Fortune Dairy Industries for the case’s investigation.
Another staffer at the facility said, “Fortune Dairy Industries started the manufacturing unit in April-May 2020. The company receives anywhere between one to two lakh litres of milk everyday from producers in Pune, Solapur and other nearby districts. The main products of the company are butter and SMP (skimmed milk powders). We have started manufacturing the ice cream for other vendors only in 2023 and that is around five per cent of our total business. In the case of Walko company ice creams, we get the raw materials that are — cream, SMPs and other ingredients — from Walko, who also holds the proprietary secret recipe. Two officers from Walko are stationed at our facility to monitor the manufacturing process.”
The staffer added, “There are around 50 skilled workers, and 150-160 unskilled workers employed at the facility along with a dozen supervisors and managerial staff. All these people and hundreds of milk suppliers whose milk we purchase everyday, are now facing uncertainty due to this action by authorities. I have heard that our company officials are talking to other large scale milk purchasers asking to purchase the milk from our suppliers so that their milk is not wasted.”
Meanwhile officials from Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in Pune said that after the incident in Mumbai came to light, their team visited an ice cream manufacturing facility in Hadapsar area of Pune which is owned by the parent company Walko. “We took some samples of manufactured product and some more of the raw material, for testing, as a precautionary measure on the backdrop of the case in Mumbai,” said an FDA officer.
Centipede in Amul’s Ice cream
Later , A woman in Uttar Pradesh’s Noida claimed she found an unwelcome guest, a centipede, inside an Amul vanilla ice cream tub that she ordered online. The shocking incident came days after a doctor from Mumbai discovered a human finger while enjoying his ice cream that he ordered online.
The woman, Deepa, a resident of Noida Sector-12, had ordered Amul vanilla ice cream via Blinkit on Saturday. When she received and opened the ice cream box, she was shocked to find a dead centipede, frozen, stuck inside.
She then posted a video on social media, showing the many-legged intruder and narrating her experience. Once the video went viral, Blinkit refunded Deepa’s money and initiated an investigation. Amul also reached out to the woman to assure her that they would look into the matter.
A food department team took note of Deepa’s video and went to her house for questioning as part of its investigation. After questioning her, the food department officials visited the Blinkit store in Sector-22, from where the ice cream tub with the centipede in it, had been dispatched.
