Charles Liu, 
In a country where premium breaded goods are always hard to find, BreadTalk has long been popular with its Chinese customers. But now the Singapore-based franchise has come under fire after an investigative television show alleged the breadmaker is violating several health codes by reusing cooking oil and replacing expiration labels on condiments.
A correspondent at Shenzhen TV’s “Time and Place for the Rule of Law” went undercover working as an employee at a BreadTalk store in the city’s Nanshan District. With the use of a hidden camera, the correspondent was able to record behind-the-scenes footage on how things are run and gain some candid revelations from other BreadTalk employees.
The undercover reporter discovered that the BreadTalk store was reusing cooking oil used to fry doughnuts, with some of the oil said to be in the system for months. As seen on the hidden camera footage, the correspondent was able to capture another employee saying, “The oil is used repeatedly and we will add new oil into the tank if it’s not enough.” Another employee said the store will only add new oil whenever an inspector shows up at the store.
BreadTalk has since responded on its Weibo account, saying the TV report is completely untrue and that their stores commonly change their cooking oil. A Chongqing BreadTalk store has also responded by saying it changes its oil every two days. BreadTalk also added that Shenzhen’s quality supervision bureau inspected the Nanshan store last Thursday and determined the cooking oil was fine.
The undercover report also couldn’t determine where the shop’s drinking water came from, with several answers from different staff saying it’s either tap water or filtered. As the report notes, all of the employees drank boiled water instead of filtered water at the store.
The correspondent found that when jars of bread condiments for sale were found to have gone past their expiry dates, BreadTalk staff would exchange their tags for newer ones instead of throwing them out. “Morning-shift staff will inspect the sauces every day and mark the expired ones on labels, but the evening-shift staff will replace them with new labels and continue using the sauces,” said the reporter.
Employees at the BreadTalk store were not in the habit of using vinegar to “sterilize the mayonnaise” used in the store’s popular meat floss bread either, saying, “I’m not going to eat it myself.”
Since entering the Chinese market in 2003, BreadTalk has opened branches in over 50 Chinese cities.
Related: