2 Pizza Hut outlets in Beijing closed down over food safety breaches
Pizza Hut China has suspended operation of two Beijing stores after food safety breaches were exposed by undercover reporters.
The restaurants at Hexie Plaza in Fengtai District and the Weigongcun in Haidian District were shut down for further investigation, Pizza Hut China said on Wednesday.
The company said it took the problems seriously and will carry out an investigation as well.
The Beijing News found in late June that kitchen staffers had been reusing cooking oil for about 10 days.
The undercover investigation also revealed that staffers have been changing expiration date stamps on raw materials.
Frozen food and half-cooked materials are usually given an expiry date stamp when they are taken out from the refrigerator, but the undercover report found dates have been changed repeatedly.
At the Weigongcun store, undercover reporters found that expired mushroom combo packages were still used.
In one case, mushroom packages, expired on July 8, were still used for one of its roast beef pizzas.
The Hexie Plaza outlet was fined 50,000 yuan (US$7,400) by the district market authorities in March this year.
The Beijing News reporters found the outlet had failed to rectify its food safety issues.
In Late June, the staffers at the Hexie Plaza Pizza Hut were found to have repeatedly changed the expiry dates of frozen meat, tea beverage ingredients and packaged desserts.