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Cindysnacks, a 100 percent vegan grocery store in Huntington, alerted the Long Island community to its concerns on Sunday, March 3.
Just a week before, co-owner John Stengel said that the store received a shipment of desserts from The Savory Fig, an independent Long Island-based vegan baker.
One of the donuts, however, looked a little familiar — in all the wrong ways.
“In the middle of the boxes was the donut,” Stengel wrote in his Instagram post, saying it “was decorated differently than all the others.”
The picture uploaded shows a frosted donut with pink and orange sprinkles shaped like the letter “D,” looking eerily similar to those used by national chain Dunkin’, which does not have any vegan or gluten-free donuts on its menu.
Concerned that the desserts may contain allergens, Stengel said he pulled all of The Savory Fig’s products off the shelves while he attempted to confirm where the mystery donut came from.
In screenshots shared on Instagram, Stengel allegedly reached out via text message to Michelle Siriani, the owner of The Savory Fig, to confront her about the situation, asking if she had repackaged Dunkin’ donuts and included them in the order.
“If these are Dunkin’ Donuts, the ingredients could kill somebody,” one of his texts reads, citing that his store sees many shoppers who have severe dairy allergies.
Siriani denied that the donut had been anything but homemade, claiming that she had decorated the donuts with alphabet sprinkles from Amazon. She sent Stengel the name of the sprinkles she had used so that he could order them for himself and confirm.
Not only were the Amazon sprinkles not labeled as vegan, Stengel said, but they looked nothing like the “D” sprinkles included on the original donut, which he put side-by-side in another picture on Instagram.
Stengel said he and co-owner Cindy “scoured” the internet to source a sprinkle that could pass as a Dunkin’ dupe, but could not find any, eventually leading them to perform an at-home gluten test on the treat — which reportedly revealed that the offending donut did contain gluten after all.
“There is a certain mutual trust and respect the vegan community, especially small businesses, have amongst ourselves,” Stengel said.
“We are enraged that this trust and respect was broken.”
Since the original post was made, the scandal quickly became viral, with videos about “Donut Gate” garnering thousands of likes and, in some cases, over a million views.
Cindysnacks provided a quick update to customers on Wednesday, March 6, confirming that they had reported The Savory Fig – whose Instagram page and website are no longer available – to the Suffolk County Department of Health and the New York Department of Agriculture and Markets.
“We are looking into several other avenues to ensure accountability is met for this situation,” the market wrote. “We want to make it clear that we came forward with this information to keep our community of local vegans and those with food allergies safe from future harm.”
The state’s Department of Agriculture and Markets confirmed to Daily Voice that a full investigation into The Savory Fig has been launched.
As a registered “home processor,” The Savory Fig is required to abide by guidelines including clearly identifying all allergens in its products, the Department said.
The Savory Fig has not responded to requests for comment.
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