Social media users are sharing a screenshot showing the profile of a company called A.R. Foods, having primarily Muslim employees, to purport that the company that supplies ghee to Sri Venkateswara Temple in Tirupati to make laddus - currently embroiled in a controversy for allegedly mixing of animal and fish fat in the laddus - is primarily managed by Muslim employees.
BOOM found these claims to be false; our fact-check reveals that the screenshots being shared are of a Pakistani food retailer called A.R. Foods Pvt Ltd, which is an entirely separate entity from the company supplying ghee to the temple, which is a Tamil Nadu-based company called AR Dairy Food Pvt Ltd. Furthermore, Ravi Chandran R, the CEO of AR Dairy Food Pvt Ltd confirmed to BOOM that the claims linking the company to the Pakistani company A.R. Foods are false.
Recent allegations that animal fat was found in the laddus at the Sri Venkateswara Temple in Tirumala have sparked a major political row in Andhra Pradesh and across the country, with the ruling TDP, led by Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu, blaming the former Chief Minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy’s government and the latter calling Naidu's allegations baseless. The supplier of ghee for making laddus at the temples was revealed to be AR Dairy Food Private Limited, which operates a retail brand named Raaj Milk.
The image going viral appears to be a screenshot of the employee section of an online profile of a company named A.R. Foods (Pvt) Limited, showing a list of Muslim names. The screenshot was widely shared by several social media users with a Hindi caption, that translated to English as, "Following are the top management names of the Tamil Nadu based company that supplies Desi Ghee to Tirupati Balaji."
Click here, here and here to view archives of the above tweet.
This claim was also shared on Facebook, which can be viewed here, here and here.
Fact Check
On observing the viral screenshots closely, BOOM noticed that the name of the company in the screenshot was A.R. Foods Pvt Ltd, as opposed to AR Dairy Food - which is the name of the company supplying ghee to the temple. Furthermore, we observed that the names of employees had "Pakistan" listed as location.
We also viewed a few posts which contained the same screenshot, but without the location. One of the names also appeared to be slightly 'erased', showing signs of editing. This suggested that some of the people sharing the screenshot might be trying to hide the location of the employees listed.
Click here to view an archive of the above post.
The above observations implied that the viral screenshot could be of a company based out of Pakistan. Taking cue from this, we did a keyword search with "A.R. Foods Pakistan", which led us to several links of a Pakistani company by that name.
We went to the "People" section in the LinkedIn profile of A.R. Foods (Pvt) Limited, which showed the names of its employees. While comparing the names to the ones in the viral screenshot, we found many of the names and their profile pictures to be the same.
We also did an image search of the viral screenshot using Google Lens, which led us to the profile of A.R. Foods (Pvt) Limited on RocketReach - an online directory of information on professionals. An 'employees' tab on the right contained the exact name, in the same order, as seen in the viral screenshot.
The information provided on the company showed the it was based in Islamabad, Pakistan. We also visited their website, where they listed all the products they sell under the brand name "Phool".
The website further confirmed under the "About me" section, that it was based in Islamabad. Furthermore, we checked their entire list of products and only found them selling dry items such as rice, nuts and spices. We could not find ghee listed among their products.
We also searched for AR Dairy Food Pvt Ltd - the company reportedly supplying ghee to the temple at Tirupati - and were led to the webpage Raajmilk - the brand name under which they sell their products.
We looked through the information provided on the company, and found that it advertises itself as a Tamil Nadu-based company selling only milk products.
We reached out to AR Dairy Food, and the company's CEO Ravi Chandran R confirmed to us that the posts linking his company to the Pakistani company A.R. Foods are false. He also confirmed to us that his company sells only milk products and supplies ghee to Sri Venkateswara Temple in Tirupati.
