The "disgusting" actions by a Pizza Hut franchise owner in Dunedin have prompted three workers to resign in protest.
Hayley Bevin, 26, quit her job three weeks ago, telling the Otago Daily Times that the owner, Naveen Malhotra, served expired food, extended the expiry dates on chicken and seafood and returned food that had been put in the rubbish.
Ms Bevin also claimed that Mr Malhotra refused to have a mixer repaired despite engine oil leaking into dough.
She said food safety ''kept getting worse'' after Mr Malhotra took over Dunedin’s two Pizza Hut stores three months ago.
She said employees were made to use expired ''disgusting, crusty'' dough and she even found brownies that she had thrown in the skip.
''I came back on Monday and they were in the chiller. I knew it was the same packet, because I took a photo of it before I left," Ms Bevin, who had worked at Pizza Hut for seven years, told the ODT.
''I don't want my friends to buy from there and get sick.''
Geraldine Oldham, general manager of marketing for Restaurant Brands said in a statement that they are aware of issues raised, and it's quality assurance team is working through them as a matter of urgency.
“There were no critical food safety risks identified
"After their visit to the store yesterday, MPI advised that there were no critical food safety risks identified. The issue regarding fraudulent ‘use by dates’ was also followed up, and no evidence of this was identified during the inspection," she said.
"Our Quality Assurance team is continuing to work with the franchise team and MPI on the investigation.”
Nikita Lloyd, 20, resigned from her job at the South Dunedin store, telling the ODT that frozen shrimp which had partially cooked while being thawed out in hot water was put back in the chiller.
She said a friend at the North Dunedin store said expired shrimp which they could smell was put on a pizza.
Mr Malhotra denied the claims, saying staff left because of issues with rostering.
MPI's manager food compliance services, Melinda Sando said they visited the store yesterday after becoming aware of the allegations.
"Following a store visit yesterday we found no evidence of any critical food safety risks, meaning we didn’t find anything that would cause immediate concerns for food safety," she said.
"However we did find a number of low level cleaning and maintenance issues which need to be addressed. We didn’t find any evidence of fraudulent date marking however we are continuing to investigate the serious allegations made."
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