Cindy Snacks is a vegan market in Long Island, N.Y. that offers doughnuts on Friday and Saturday that they source from local gluten-free and vegan bakeries. One of the many vendors the bakery reached out to was Savory Fig to supply vegan doughnuts. However, things didn’t go as planned. Savory Fig is currently facing backlash and controversy due to its false advertisement of a vegan doughnut.
Why is there controversy over a doughnut?
Cindy Snacks exposed Savory Fig on Instagram, mentioning the consideration of legal action as the bakery is extremely upset over the trust and respect that the vegan community has amongst each other being broken.
In this post, the owners explain the situation and how they reached out to Savory Fig.
“In the middle of the boxes was the doughnut pictured in the first slide,” the caption starts. “I (John) immediately became concerned as to why this one doughnut was decorated differently than all the others and in such a strikingly similar way to a recognizable chain.”
The doughnut resembled one from Dunkin' with a light pink glaze and orange and pink “D” sprinkles all over it — the same colors as the logo of Dunkin'.
John, one of the owners, reached out to Savory Fig to voice out his concern as they have customers with severe allergies. He received a very direct response stating that the doughnut was "definitely not Dunkin' Donuts."
In response, the owner of Savory Fig, Michelle, said that she made those doughnuts with the “D” sprinkles for someone’s birthday party, and that she would send the picture of the container that has the sprinkles. After a few messages, Michelle sent a picture of generic alphabet sprinkles from Amazon, which raised some suspicion.
“When you have purchased things in the past on Amazon, it’ll say purchased on the image,” commented an Instagram user. “Even when scrolling.”
This suggests that Michelle most definitely did not use those sprinkles or even purchase them.
The owners of Cindy Snacks decided to order an at-home gluten test to see for themselves. They took the doughnut in question, chopped it into pieces, and used the gluten test. The test results, which are also included in John’s Instagram post, came back positive and showed that the doughnut contained a substantial amount of gluten. So, the doughnut was most likely from Dunkin'.
Has Savory Fig responded?
Savory Fig hasn’t responded and deleted their Instagram account. Users like @kyliesouder expressed sadness over the situation.
“As a Celiac, this is such a punch in the gut,” she commented in a recounting of the events. “I always, always ask to confirm, these are celiac safe and free from cross contamination. And to have to second guess that or get wildly ill really sucks.”
Cindy Snacks posted an update on March 5, stating that they contacted the Supervisor at the Division of Food Safety and Inspection from N.Y. Agriculture and Markets, who will begin an investigation, as well as has alerted the Suffolk County Department of Health.