Kerfuffle over kulfi

Two years back Shiraz Gimi, honorary secretary of the Nagpur Parsi Punchayet, was pleasantly surprised when offered Parsi Dairy kulfi at a prestigious club in the city. He shared with Parsiana over the telephone that though the round disc looked familiar, it lacked the taste he had been anticipating. When he commented on this, the club informed him that they had bought the frozen Indian dessert from a supplier in Poona.

Parsi Dairy Farm kulfis

Soon business boomed and the Parsi kulfi began to appear on the menus of many clubs and eateries in Nagpur, with eager consumers wanting to try it even though it cost twice as much as the regular local variety, Gimi said. He, however, received feedback from several persons that the kulfi was not as good as the original one. Why did not Dinshaw’s, the ice cream maker with whom Gimi works, produce it in Nagpur? they wished to know. Gimi discussed the matter with Aspi Bapuna, owner of Dinshaw’s and president of the Punchayet, and they began investigations. Not only was the kulfi not from the original Parsi Dairy in Bombay, it was not from Poona either, they discovered. They traced the manufacturer and supplier to the Itwari area of Nagpur. When confronted, the man said that he was did not sell his product as Parsi Dairy kulfi, and was not responsible for what the purchasers did later. But Gimi found out that the man was tutoring his clients not to reveal that his was not the genuine stuff.
This was when Bapuna decided to go public to safeguard the reputation of the 100-year-old Parsi Dairy. He published a legal notice which read: "There is a secret of more than seven decades behind manufacturing the Parsi kulfi. What is being sold in the name of Parsi kulfi is mere substandard kulfi which nowhere matches the superior taste of the original.” The Nagpur edition of The Times of India (TOI) of July 18, 2016 carried the notice, as did other local newspapers, Gimi told Parsiana.
The TOI then approached the management of Parsi Dairy in Bombay where Bakhtiyar Irani responded that they were not aware of the controversy. Irani expressed shock that people in Nagpur were being misled into buying kulfis by misuse of the Parsi Dairy name. He did, however, confirm to TOI that they have been sending consignments to some vendors in Nagpur.
Bapuna shared with TOI that the Parsi kulfi recipe is a closely guarded secret "so a Parsi kulfi has to come from only a Parsi. As an ice cream maker, Dinshaw’s does not sell Parsi kulfi, though it may plan (to do so) in the future.”