Ex-restaurant owner pleads guilty to illegally storing meat and seafood, including 1,000kg of expired products

SINGAPORE – The previous proprietor of a steamboat restaurant in Seashore Highway has pleaded responsible to illegally storing practically 20,000kg of meat and seafood merchandise, together with greater than 1,000kg of expired merchandise.

The expired meals included mouldy salmon and lobster meat eight years previous its due date.

On Wednesday, Tan Poh Gwee, who had traded as frozen product provider Ed’s Frozen Enterprise, admitted to 2 expenses of flouting the Healthful Meat and Fish Act.

He’s additionally charged with transporting meat merchandise from Enterprise One in Kaki Bukit Highway in an unclean automobile that didn’t have a working refrigeration compartment and contained dwell cockroaches, beneath theWholesome Meat and Fish (Transportation of Meat Merchandise) Guidelines.

Tan can also be the previous proprietor of Chong Qing (Origin) Steamboat in Seashore Highway, Chinese language newspaper Shin Min Each day Information reported. The restaurant made headlines in 2022 when a person slashed one among its staff repeatedly exterior the eatery.

Shin Min reported on Thursday that the Singapore Meals Company (SFA) found in July 2021 that Tan didn’t use a chilly retailer licence after receiving public suggestions that meals he offered by way of live-streaming was not contemporary.

At the moment, he was notified that he wanted a licence to proceed operating a chilly retailer.

A shock examine by the authorities in August 2021 discovered that Tan had but to use for a licence and was unlawfully storing about 19,483kg of seafood and meat merchandise, in response to Shin Min.

The meat merchandise had been saved in unsealed baggage and positioned on the bottom.

Greater than 1,000kg of meals was discovered to have expired, together with slipper lobster meat that expired in June 2013, mouldy salmon and squid merchandise.

Tan instructed the court docket that he had utilized for a licence however couldn’t get it earlier than SFA’s examine in August 2021, Shin Min reported.

He additionally mentioned he had accrued unsold meals and was unable to pay hire, which has led him to fall out of business.