It's been a tough couple of weeks for IKEA, which has now recalled its almond and butterscotch cake from in-store restaurants in 23 countries, including Australia, after the discovery of a type of bacteria typically found in faeces.
Samples of the cake that were sent to China were found to have the bacteria, known as Coliform.
IKEA, which has seven Australian stores, released a statement confirming that traces of coliform bacteria were found in two batches of the cake produced for its restaurants by one supplier in Sweden, reports Good Food.
"The batches in question affect the IKEA restaurant in Australian stores," the statement reads.
"We have withdrawn this item from our restaurant. The Swedish Food Market is not affected as this product is from a different production batch that is not in question or of concern."
Coliform bacteria is found in the environment as well as in faeces. The bacteria itself is generally of no danger to consumers, but it points to a potential presence of other pathogens like E coli.
IKEA stated that it tested the contaminated samples of the cake for of E coli, and that no traces have been found.
Via email, a company spokeswoman said, “There is no health risk associated with consuming this product.
“However, since the product does not comply with our strict food quality standards we have decided to withdraw the concerned production batches from sales in our restaurants," she added.
This recall follows another recent food scare at the furniture retailer. IKEA was earlier this month embroiled in the international horse meat sage, with traces of horse meat found in samples taken from meatballs labelled as 'beef and pork' at IKEA's Brno outlet in the Czech Republic.. The affected batch had also been distributed to Britain, Portugal, Netherlands, Belgium, Slovakia, Hungary, France, Italy, Spain, Greece, Cyprus and Ireland.