Moldy meatballs, dirty can openers, mouse droppings: the kitchen of the Echinger Ikea restaurant had been in dire conditions for years.
Eching
- For five years, from 2014 to 2019, the kitchen of the Echingen Ikea restaurant was in unsafe conditions.
Moldy meatballs or dirty can openers were probably the lesser problem: As documents from the Freising District Office show, mice in particular caused long-term difficulties for Ikea.
Their legacies kept appearing in areas around the kitchen.
The good news: the situation seems to have been under control again since the end of March, and there were no more complaints during the last inspection.
Ikea Eching: Mouse excrement on record since June 2015
The excrement was first put on record in June 2015. "The floor under the pallets in the warehouse in the basement was contaminated with mouse excrement in places," says a report of the results from the inspectors from the district authorities. When they paid another visit to the Ikea kitchen in March 2016, ten of the 24 violations noted concerned the small rodents. Mouse droppings were found in corridors, under ovens, microwaves and work tables, in cupboards, on wooden pallets, in shelves and on the outer packaging of the popular hot dogs.
No wonder that the food inspection department shortened its inspection intervals and checked the kitchen five more times by March 2017.
And the little black spheres kept reappearing: on floors, shelves or even the transport trolley on which the warming containers with sauces are stored.
Mouse droppings have only played a role in the logs since November 2017.
As a result, only minor violations of the hygiene rules in the kitchen area were registered.
At Ikea we of course take the reports from the authorities very seriously.
Ikea press spokeswoman Claudia Seibert
At Ikea itself, “we naturally take the reports from the authorities very seriously and always act immediately if defects are found,” as press spokeswoman Claudia Seibert announced on request. "We work with a comprehensive HACCP concept, compliance with which we continuously check and ensure compliance in unannounced audits." Since these deficiencies were made known by an individual consumer via an Internet portal, Ikea also offered him "in a direct exchange with us." step, (...) to avoid misunderstandings ”. As Seibert explains, the inspection reports of the offices are "often written in technical jargon and only in key words". It is questionable, however, whether the formulations in the minutes of the district office are really that difficult to understand.
No acute health risk: That is why the population did not learn anything
The district authority, which not only imposed a fine of 470 euros because of the incidents, but also temporarily blocked part of the operation, justified it with legal requirements that would have been missing to inform the population about the violations of the hygiene requirements in the restaurant kitchen to inform.
There was neither an acute risk to health, nor was "a nauseating food in not inconsiderable quantities on the market".
Regardless, the restaurant has already been closed for months because of the pandemic.
Also read: Another corona outbreak in retirement homes in the Freising district
