Supermarket chain rewards whistleblower on food safety

A supermarket chain in Henan province has awarded a whistleblower 100,000 yuan ($13,800), and will pay some 8.83 million yuan in customer compensation after an investigation confirmed a report that a processing workshop that supplied food for one of its contracted stalls was in poor sanitary condition.

Pangdonglai, which operates about a dozen supermarkets and department stores in Henan, announced the decision on its WeChat account on Thursday, adding that two food safety managers had been fired and the company's contract with the diner selling the food has been terminated.

Clips posted on the Douyin short video platform on Tuesday claimed that a processing workshop that supplied raw materials for ganmianpi, a seasoned cold noodle salad, for a food stall in a Pangdonglai shopping center in Xinxiang, Henan, was in a poor sanitary condition.

Pangdonglai said on Wednesday that it had suspended the operation of contracted food stalls in its two centers in Xinxiang. Early on Thursday, it said that based on an initial investigation, the report checked out and it was making the necessary amendments to its operations.

The company said the whistleblower went to the shopping center's catering department on June 19 and showed the footage, which the department noticed was shot in a workshop different from the one that the contractor said it was using. The department arranged for inspectors to check the filmed location the next day, and found that the food was processed at the undocumented workshop, with the food supplied to two Pangdonglai shops in the city.

The department fined the contractor 5,000 yuan, suspended its operation and told it to shut down the problematic workshop. On June 22, the department confirmed that the raw materials were ready to be processed at a cleaner, qualified location, and the stall resumed operation the next day.

After the video was posted on Douyin, the company hierarchy intervened, and the contractor explained that the workshop filmed was a temporary one being used between June 9 and June 19 when it was moving its regular workshop.

Pangdonglai said that in appreciation of the whistleblower's supervision and help, it is giving the customer 100,000 yuan in cash. Meanwhile, it will give refunds for all 8,833 orders involving the food in question in Pangdonglai's two shops in Xinxiang from June 9 to June 19, as well as 1,000 yuan compensation for each order.

The catering department chief manager, surnamed Zhou, and a food safety inspector, surnamed Li, were fired, as they should have terminated the contract upon noticing the sanitary breach instead of issuing a fine and allowing it to be rectified, and also failed to shut down the stall in a timely manner.

The company vowed to intensify its supervision and the traceability of its dining contractors, and said it would continue to reward whistleblowers.