Pizza Hut's Pizzas Are Crunchier - Well in Brisbane Anyway!!
$35,000 fine for serving 'cockroach pizza'
The American operator of a Brisbane Pizza Hut restaurant was last week fined $35,000 after a cooked cockroach was found in a barbecue meatlovers takeaway pizza. The Brisbane Magistrates Court was told a Brisbane City Council inspection of the Pizza Hut at Bellbowrie had found "a serious and extensive" cockroach infestation". The raid on the restaurant in city's outer west in August by the council's environmental health officers found:
* Food ingredients stored in open containers in the preparation area below fittings that were cockroach-infested;
* A bag of flour that was not kept in a vermin-proof container;
* Dirt, dust, food and cockroach waste had accumulated on the floor;
* Walls were soiled with grease and cockroach feces;
* Dead cockroaches and cockroach waste was dried into a hinge of a refrigerator;
* Live cockroaches on a refrigerator seal and hinge.
Subsequent tests on the offending pizza found the cockroach, known as the blatella germanica nymph, was alive when it was cooked. The council suspended the licence of the restaurant operated by Yum! Restaurants, the US food giant that owns some Pizza Huts in Australia. The restaurant closed voluntarily but re-opened the next month after upgrading procedures and hygiene.
As well as being fined after it pleaded guilty to breaches of the Food Act, the company was ordered to pay the BCC $5000 in costs. In a statement to The Sunday Mail Yum! Restaurants said it took full responsibility for the charges and apologised unreservedly to its Bellbowrie customers. The company said the Bellbowrie incident was the first time a Queensland court had found it responsible for "such an incident" since it began operating here in 1972. It also said staff had been disciplined and a new manager appointed to the store.
