Blade In Flight Meal: Food Authority Issues Notice To Air India's Catering Firm

The Food Safety And Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) recently issued a notice to the airline catering company TajSATS regarding improving the safety, hygiene and service of in-flight meals. This comes after an Air India passenger claimed that he found a blade-like metal object in the food he had while flying from Bengaluru to San Francisco. Mathures Paul, a journalist, took to social media to share his ordeal aboard Air India AI 175 flight last week.

Also Read: Food Authority Directs Airline Caterers To Prioritize Food Safety: Report

Air India food can cut like a knife. Hiding in its roasted sweet potato and fig chaat was a metal piece that looked like a blade. I got a feel of it only after chewing the grub for a few seconds. Thankfully, no harm was done. Of course, the blame squarely lies with Air India's… pic.twitter.com/NNBN3ux28S

— Mathures Paul (@MathuresP) June 10, 2024

According to a report in PTI, the incident occurred on June 9, 2024, after which the food safety authority inspected TajSATS Bengaluru from where the food item was supplied. "We have issued an improvement notice to TajSATS, following a detailed inspection at TajSATS Bengaluru," FSSAI CEO Kamala Vardhana Rao told PTI.

The report further states that the metal object was a blade from an automatic vegetable cutter, which accidentally got placed inside a piece of vegetable. However, to prevent such incidents, the FSSAI CEO instructed the catering company to take corrective measures within 15 days by installing x-ray machines, and including manual vegetable choppers in the kitchen. FSSAI further asked the company to be more stringent about food safety and inspection. 

Speaking about the incident, Air India confirmed to ANI that after investigation, the foreign object was identified as a blade from "the vegetable processing machine used at the facilities of our catering partner".

The airline also responded to Mathures Paul's post on social media, by stating, "Dear Mr. Paul, we are sorry to know about this. This does not represent the level of service we aim to provide to our passengers. Please DM us your booking details along with your seat number. We'll ensure this matter is promptly reviewed and addressed."

Earlier, FSSAI issued one such improvement notice to Indigo for serving "unsafe food" to the passengers.