A video claiming that a foodpanda outlet staff in India is purposely blowing into the packet of food before giving it out for delivery is going viral on social media in India. Netizens are seen tagging all top leaders in India including PM Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah asking them to take action against the same.
One of the users Lakshan Seth shared the video on Twitter with the caption: "Isn't it that we are compromising on National Security big time by letting these sorts of things happen and not taking any necessary action."
Hoax busted
But the truth is that first of all the video is not from India. Secondly, the video was shot last year, much before the spread of coronavirus. According to Boom Fact Check, it can be proved that the shop is not situated in India. The foodpanda logo seen in the video is pink colour. But in India, the colour of the logo used by the food delivery business was orange. In fact, Ola in 2017 took over foodpanda and has stopped promoting foodpanda altogether. Instead, it is Olafoods now.
Speaking to Boom, an official from Ola said, that they have rebranded to Olafoods about a year ago and do not use Foodpanda in any of their collaterals. Thus this proves that the video is not from India. Looking at the second fact that is claiming of staff purposely blowing into the food packet to spread coronavirus, even that can be proved wrong. Because the earlier video was found published in April 2019, when nobody even had imagined the advent of coronavirus.
The video was shared by Molly Jones on Twitter on April 26, 2019, with the caption: "Untuk yg gemar makan di kedai mamak...berhati2 lah... meaning "for those who love to eat at mamak shops, be careful." The tweet is being shared in the Malay language.
On the same day, the video was shared by a Facebook group called "We Are Malaysians." The caption shared on the video is "Secret recipe to keep papadum fresh always." As the video started making rounds, netizens even demanded to ban foodpanda in India. Thus both the claims that this is a stall in India and the staff is blowing into the cover to spread coronavirus are fake. As on April 4, India has recorded 3,082 confirmed cases of coronavirus and 86 deaths.
