Starbucks Stores Face Major Issues! Thousands of Complaints on Black Cat Rights Protection Platform Remain Unaddressed?

Starbucks Food Safety Scandal Triggers Nationwide Inspections

After media reports several days ago revealed that a Starbucks location in Wuxi had used expired ingredients while employees tampered with expiration dates, the issue immediately sparked heated discussion among netizens. Following the incident, market regulatory bureaus in multiple cities - including Shanghai, Nanjing, Changsha, Yinchuan, Hefei, Jinan, Suzhou, and Wuxi - launched synchronized actions, conducting surprise inspections of local Starbucks stores.

The various market regulatory bureaus summarized the results of these surprise inspections: during the campaign, no illegal practices such as changing internal control deadline labels on food ingredients or using ingredients beyond their internal control deadlines were found in other stores. Several locations, however, were found to have non-compliant issues.

These included employees not wearing work caps or masks during operations, improper disposal records, incomplete disinfection records, disorganized storage of items in processing areas, uncovered trash cans in processing areas, opened ingredients not stored in sealed containers, and mixed storage of food and non-food items in warehouses. For the issues identified, the market regulatory bureaus handled them according to law and ordered the relevant units to make corrections within a specified timeframe.

(List of inspection issues found in 18 Starbucks stores in Suzhou)

Previous Food Safety Issues Surface

Even before this incident came to light, signs of Starbucks food safety problems had already appeared. On November 26th, a Starbucks location in Shenzhen was publicly issued an administrative penalty decision on the local market regulatory bureau's website for failing to promptly dispose of expired mooncakes.

Consumer Complaints and Starbucks' Response

Beyond the problems exposed by the media, a consumer rights protection platform online also carries thousands of complaints against Starbucks, none of which have been addressed. Many involve food safety - using dirty cups, consuming moldy or spoiled food, experiencing gastrointestinal discomfort after eating, and more.

As these events escalated in recent days, netizens quickly pushed "complaints left unaddressed" to the top of trending topics. In response, Starbucks customer service also issued a statement: Starbucks has not registered on that complaint platform, so it cannot be determined whether the complaints reflected there actually involved Starbucks consumption. They added that if the issues reflected on the platform are factual, customers would typically have already provided feedback through official channels for resolution.

Regarding the specific issues mentioned in the complaints - consuming moldy or spoiled food, experiencing diarrhea after eating, and using dirty cups - Starbucks has not provided any response.

Image source: Internet

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