Days after a Mumbai resident discovered what appeared to be a piece of flesh, possibly from a human finger, in an ice cream cone, the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) inspected the premises of Fortune Dairy Industries in Indapur taluka, Pune, and halted the facility’s operations.
On Wednesday, 26-year-old Mumbai doctor Brandon Ferrao lodged a complaint with Malad police station after finding flesh with a nail in a Yummo’s butterscotch ice cream, a product of Walko QSR Company Pvt Ltd, which he had ordered through the delivery app Zepto.
The Fortune Dairy Industries facility appeared deserted after operations were ordered to cease early Saturday morning following an FSSAI inspection that began on Friday.
An officer from Indapur police station, which covers the area where Fortune Dairy Industries is located, stated, “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.”
A staff member at Fortune Dairy Industries, speaking anonymously, said, “Our company has a manufacturing license 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, conducted an inspection and a panchnama of our unit. The inspection continued until early Saturday morning, after which they ordered the facility’s operations to stop.” Attempts to contact Fortune Dairy Industries officials were unsuccessful.
The production unit is located about 130 kilometers from Pune city in the Maharashtra Industrial Development Corporation (MIDC) industrial cluster in the Loni Deokar area of Indapur taluka, Pune district. Mumbai police had earlier stated they were investigating the supply chain from the delivery executive to the third-party manufacturer.
Walko QSR Company Pvt Ltd released a statement on Saturday, saying, “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.”
The inspection was conducted by the Mumbai-based Western Regional unit of FSSAI. On Saturday afternoon, a team from Mumbai police visited Fortune Dairy Industries as part of the investigation.
A staff member at the facility noted, “Fortune Dairy Industries started the manufacturing unit in April-May 2020. The company receives between one to two lakh liters of milk every day from producers in Pune, Solapur, and other nearby districts. The main products of the company are butter and SMP (skimmed milk powders). We started manufacturing ice cream for other vendors only in 2023, which constitutes about five percent of our total business. For Walko company ice creams, we get the raw materials—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 staff member 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 every day 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 them to buy milk from our suppliers so their milk is not wasted.”
Meanwhile, officials from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in Pune said that after the Mumbai incident came to light, their team visited an ice cream manufacturing facility in Hadapsar, Pune, owned by the parent company Walko. “We took some samples of the manufactured product and some more of the raw material for testing as a precautionary measure in the backdrop of the case in Mumbai,” said an FDA officer.