In the "fat cat" takeaway empty bag incident that was hotly discussed on the whole network not long ago, many domestic catering brands were discredited because of the empty package, but at that time, McDonald's and other global chain giants were able to stick to the spirit of the contract and did not disappoint. But who would have thought that before the heat of the "fat cat incident" completely subsided, McDonald's was exposed to "overturn".
On the morning of the 13th, according to the Beijing News, the reporter recently underwent McDonald's Zhengzhou Excellent Agricultural Union Restaurant and McDonald's Jinan University Restaurant, and found that both restaurants had problems such as tampering with food shelf life labels, using expired ingredients, selling food after the shelf life and cutting corners. McDonald's Zhengzhou Excellent Agricultural Union Restaurant, there is also a situation where the quality of fried oil exceeds the standard.
On the afternoon of the 13th, the Market Supervision and Administration Bureau of Zhengdong New District, Zhengzhou City, Henan Province and the Market Supervision and Administration Bureau of Shizhong District, Jinan City, Shandong Province said that the relevant departments of the two places have gone to the stores involved to investigate and collect evidence. As of about 14:30, the two stores involved are still operating normally, and McDonald's officials have not yet responded to the matter.
The problems found by the "undercover agents" are shocking
Expired ingredients are labeled to "continue life"
In the McDonald's kitchen, after the employees take out the frozen bread from the freezer, they must label them with a time slip, marking the thawing time, availability time and expiration time, and after the ingredients expire, they need to be discarded.
However, in the back kitchen of McDonald's Zhengzhou Excellence Agricultural Association, when the bread used to make McSpicy Chicken Leg Burger had expired, employees used scissors to cut off the time bar on the bread packaging bag and re-posted a new time slip, which was extended from 10 p.m. on March 6 to 2 p.m. on March 7. That night, when the night shift staff checked the bread on the bread shelf, they directly tore off the original time slip and replaced it with a new sign, and the time slip that originally recorded the expiration of bread at 10 p.m. on the 6th was also postponed by one day and changed to expire at 10 p.m. on the 7th.
Like bread, McDonald's meat ingredients require employees to label when they will be thawed, used and expired.
On March 10, in the thawing area, 8 bags of grilled chicken thighs that expired at 10 p.m. that night were renewed to extend the shelf life by 16 hours, and the new time bar showed that the expiration time of these chicken thighs was changed to 2 p.m. on the 11th.
Tampering with the expiration date is not limited to McDonald's restaurant, but also to McDonald's Jinan University Restaurant.
There were two bags of grilled chicken thighs that expired that night and needed to be discarded, but the manager on duty at the restaurant revised the expiration time on the grounds that the time bar was wrong, "If it expires at 9 p.m. on the 5th, change it to 2 p.m. on the 6th." "Waiting until the next day, the time bar showed that a bag of chicken breasts and a bag of lute legs expired that night, and at 9 o'clock in the evening, the manager on duty took out the old time slip and threw it away, and then rewrote two new time slips and put them in, and the expiration time was changed from 10 p.m. on the 6th to 10 p.m. on the 7th.
The "second shelf-life" standard is a non-existent one
In order to ensure that customers eat high-quality food and get the best taste, McDonald's has set the standard of "second shelf life" of ingredients, and all foods that have passed the shelf life are prohibited from being sold to customers.
However, during the reporter's undercover investigation, it was found that these standards were greatly discounted in the process of implementing the restaurant.
At 4 p.m. on March 9, it was past the peak hour of dining, and in the back kitchen of McDonald's Excellent Agricultural Association, there were still three fried pipa legs that had not yet been sold. According to the regulations, the lute leg needs to be put into the holding cabinet after frying, and the countdown function is turned on, and if it is not sold within 20 minutes, it needs to be discarded. But the legs were not sold until 5 p.m., and no staff discarded them until the dinner rush hour, when the fried legs were sold to customers.
During the 9 days that the reporter was undercover in the store, the insulated cabinet was used every day, but the timekeeping function was never turned on once. "It is only opened when there is a leader to check, and we don't open it every day, and the sound of 'Dididi' after the time is annoying." An employee of the Excellence Agricultural Union Restaurant said.
If the chronograph reminder is not turned on, no one will stare at the clock to determine whether the food has passed the "second shelf life" period, and this will also lead to the frequent occurrence of "beyond the shelf life" of food being sold.
The same situation exists in the McDonald's Jinan University restaurant. During the day, some of the store's employees use the timer function of the incubator, but they do not dispose of the food even when it is due.
In addition, McDonald's also stipulates the time of use of lettuce, custard, tomato and other ingredients, equips it with dials for timekeeping, and clearly stipulates the frequency of washing hands and changing rags for kitchen staff. However, during the investigation, the employees of the Excellence Agricultural Federation Restaurant and the Jinan University Restaurant had never used the chronograph dial, and they were indifferent when the set clock reminded them to wash their hands and change the rags.
The frying oil is used to exceed the standard
The quality of the frying oil determines the taste and safety of the food. It is well known that cooking oil can produce harmful substances when used to fry food repeatedly. The National Food Safety Standard for Vegetable Oils clearly stipulates that if the polar component value of edible oil exceeds 27, it can no longer be used. McDonald's, which has fried most of its dishes, has stricter requirements for this value. McDonald's training course for employees mentions that before filtering oil every day, employees need to test the frying oil, and if the polar component value exceeds 24, the frying oil must be replaced.
The frying area in the back kitchen of McDonald's Zhengzhou Excellence Agricultural Federation Restaurant is divided into 6 oil tanks to fry different types of ingredients. No. 1 and No. 2 oil tanks need to fry five kinds of ingredients, such as chicken wings, chicken strips, large chicken cutlets, spicy chicken thigh steaks, and chicken balls, which are used more frequently, and because of the large amount of frying, the oil deteriorates quickly. The oil in the No. 1 and No. 2 oil tanks was replaced on the evening of March 7, and by the evening of the 9th, it had become ink-colored, and even after filtration, there was still no intuitive change. The duty manager did not ask for a replacement after checking the polar component values.
On the evening of March 9, the reporter took a sample from the No. 1 oil tank and sent it to a company with edible oil testing qualifications in Guangzhou for testing, and the results showed that the polar component value of the sample was 26.6. This tank of oil has exceeded the replacement standard stipulated by McDonald's, and is only 0.4 short of exceeding the national standard disposal standard, but it is still used until the evening of the 10th.
Burgers cut corners
In order to save costs, the two restaurants investigated by the reporter cut corners when making burgers.
Scrambled egg burgers are a type of burger served in McDonald's for breakfast. By standard, the product consists of two freshly scrubbed eggs and served with bacon, pork tenderloin and custard. At the peak of breakfast, employees scramble 8 eggs at the same time, cut them into 4 portions and add them to the burger. However, when the employees of the Zhengzhou Excellent Agricultural Federation Restaurant teach reporters to scramble eggs, they often ask for only 7 eggs to be scrambled. "I can't tell if it's cooked." An employee of the store said.
There are more than 30,000 teachers and students on the main campus of Jinan University, and the McDonald's restaurant in this university is lower than that of McDonald's outside the university, and the meals sold are mainly hamburgers. According to a veteran employee, the restaurant uses several bottles of McFragrant Chicken Sauce at the end of the day, which is the most consumed of all sauces, and the restaurant put the idea on this sauce in order to save costs. "Normally, each burger needs to be beaten with 20 ml of sauce, but they (the store) didn't use a 10 ml sauce gun to save sauce, and they used 10 ml of sauce. Remember, when someone comes to check, replace it. An employee of the store said.
This is not the first violation of the law, and it has repeatedly stated rectification
This is not the first time that McDonald's has encountered the problem of changing the label of expired ingredients to continue to be used and sold.
As early as 2012, CCTV's "3.15" party named McDonald's Sanlitun restaurant for illegal operations such as refurbishment and resale of expired food. At that time, McDonald's issued a public statement saying that it would apologize to consumers with practical actions and would deepen management of this matter to provide consumers with safe and hygienic food.
In October 2021, McDonald's was on the hot search again due to food safety issues: a video blogger secretly visited a McDonald's restaurant in Hefei, Anhui Province, and found that the restaurant had problems such as lettuce blackened and still in use, and replacing expired food labels. After the incident, McDonald's also responded that it required the general managers of all restaurants across the country to verify the implementation of food safety again.
In March 2022, an employee at a McDonald's store in Nanjing reported that the meat ingredients in the store were still served to customers after they had expired. The employee said that on more than one occasion, at the behest of the manager on duty and the store manager, the store tore off the labels of expired food and replaced them with new ones.
McDonald's entered the Chinese market in 1990 and has more than 5,500 stores in China by the end of 2023. China is currently McDonald's the second largest market in the world. According to McDonald's official disclosure, McDonald's China is moving towards the goal of exceeding 10,000 restaurants by 2028.
According to the official website, McDonald's restaurants have world-renowned quality standards, adhere to the principle of food safety with food and packaging suppliers, and run this concept through every link from the field to the table, and strive to achieve the ultimate, so that every customer can enjoy safe and delicious food.
Text: Zhang Xiaonan
Editor-in-charge: Zhang Xiaonan
Inspect Jiang Saisai
Source: Beijing News, China-Singapore Jingwei