Source: The Paper
The pictures in this article are all Weibo@People's Online Commentary
According to reports, recently, some reporters have gone undercover for McDonald's Zhengzhou Excellence Agricultural Union Restaurant and McDonald's Jinan University Restaurant, and found that both restaurants have problems such as tampering with food expiration labels, using expired ingredients, selling food after the expiration date, and cutting corners. McDonald's Zhengzhou Excellent Agricultural Union Restaurant also has the situation that the quality of fried oil exceeds the standard.
"Quality, service, cleanliness and value for money", McDonald's business philosophy is widely known. Judging from the reporter's unannounced visit, some McDonald's restaurants betrayed this concept. Whether it is tampering with food expiration date labels or using expired ingredients, there is no talk of quality or cleanliness.
Judging from the report, it is an unspoken rule for the restaurant involved to tamper with the food shelf life label, etc., which is a normal operation in its store, "as long as the ingredients expire, they will almost choose to tamper with the expiration time instead of discarding the ingredients." Moreover, this basic operation is not just the work of ordinary employees, but also the duty manager and even the restaurant manager are involved. As the report said, "the reporter found that under the drive of the manager on duty, other kitchen employees are also up and down...... this detail is shocking and more worthy of questioning.
The Food Safety Law clearly stipulates that it is forbidden to label food and food additives with false production dates, shelf life or beyond the shelf life. The Food Safety Law also stipulates that food business operators shall store food in accordance with the requirements of ensuring food safety, regularly inspect the food in stock, and promptly clean up the food that has deteriorated or exceeded the shelf life. It can be seen that the relevant practices of the McDonald's restaurant involved have been suspected of violating the law. In the restaurant involved, the manager on duty should have been responsible, but he led the employees to do illegal things together, and he should bear the corresponding responsibility.
Sadly, in the face of undercover reporters, "Why don't you follow the standards?" Some employees retorted "don't ask too much", and the restaurant manager also acquiesced in the occurrence of such frequent suspected violations and violations. Knowing this, it is not surprising that the restaurant involved has food safety problems.
The question is, how long has this phenomenon lasted? Was it only at the McDonald's restaurant in question? In other words, how many deep-seated problems have been exposed by the failure of McDonald's internal supervision?
I still remember that in October 2021, a video blogger secretly visited a McDonald's restaurant in Hefei, Anhui Province, and found that the restaurant had problems such as blackened lettuce and still being used, and replacing the label of expired ingredients; 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. All this seems to show that McDonald's restaurants are not alone in changing the labels of expired ingredients and selling expired food. What's the problem?
Obviously, McDonald's so-called "deepening management to provide consumers with safe and hygienic food" cannot just stay in words, but should be implemented in action. McDonald's restaurants in many places have been repeatedly exposed to food safety problems, which also proves that its entire management mechanism has failed, failed to play its due role, and lacked due efficiency.
McDonald's restaurants have repeatedly stumbled on food safety, which is not only related to the lack of awareness of respecting the law, but also related to the disorder of internal management. Can't McDonald's even keep the most basic bottom line? And how to give consumers a trustworthy explanation?