An Indian restaurant in the US has been fined $1.8m for offering Indian food, which was labelled as “fake” and “Indian food”.
The food was advertised as being made from spices, but had no ingredients that were not available in India.
The fine was imposed on the New York-based Indian restaurant, where the owner had allegedly been in charge of the kitchen, and was later suspended from the business.
The company had advertised its dishes as being authentic and authentic-looking.
The restaurant’s owner, Anurag Thakur, who had been working in the kitchen since February 2017, had also failed to provide adequate supervision.
The Indian food had been advertised as having Indian spices, a product which was not available anywhere in India, and the Indian name was “Indian spices”.
The fine came after the restaurant was found to have been advertising products made in India that did not exist.
“This case is about how a restaurant in New York can make money by marketing products that are not available and that have no Indian origin,” the restaurant’s lawyer, Rajiv Prasad, told the New Delhi-based media outlet NDTV.
“These are some of the worst examples of selling fake food in India.”
The restaurant was fined $100,000.
The US Department of Justice (DoJ) said that it had fined a number of restaurants in the past for using fake ingredients and labeling them as “authentic”.
“While there may be some legitimate reasons for using a brand name, the use of misleading or deceptive language is prohibited,” the DOJ said in a statement.
The DOJ added that “the use of false or misleading labels to promote products made by a foreign company or an Indian company constitutes an unlawful marketing practice that harms the health and safety of consumers”.
The restaurants that have been fined so far are: The Bamboo Cafe in San Francisco, California, which had advertised “vegetable salad” as being “made with real vegetables”, as well as “salt-cured chicken” and a “cheese salad” (without cheese) in the menu.
The owner had also been suspended.
The Thai Cuisine in New Jersey, which also advertised “authenticity” as a key ingredient in its dishes.
The business was fined a total of $500,000 and had also suspended its manager.
The New York Times reports that the owner of the restaurant, Anant Kumar, was suspended after an internal investigation by the New Jersey Department of Consumer Affairs (DCA).
“This was an intentional misrepresentation and a violation of our code of conduct, which states that no food or beverage sold in our restaurants is food that was or will be produced in India,” the department said in its statement.
“We also took immediate action against the person responsible for this misrepresentation.”
The Washington Post reported that the DCA had also issued a fine of $5,000 to a Chinese restaurant that had advertised dishes as “tofu fried rice” in a menu listing that claimed to be from a restaurant called the Great Fire House in Hong Kong.
The menu said the dish had been made from “tiger meat, bamboo, bean sprouts, green chillies, rice, sesame seeds and chili powder”.
The Washington Times also reported that several other restaurant chains had been fined in the last year for using misleading and deceptive ingredients.
“The use of terms or products not available or not available to consumers in the United States constitutes an unfair and deceptive act that harms consumers and consumers’ health,” the Department of Agriculture’s Office of Consumer Protection said in 2016.
“Our investigations indicate that many businesses continue to use misleading and misleading ingredients and packaging to market their products, and these misrepresentations harm consumers and the public health.”