Bakery chain Maxim’s has been fined HK$9,000 (US$1,160) for selling a pork floss bun that was found to have a small lizard among its filling.
The catering giant pled guilty last Friday to one count of offering food “not of the quality demanded by the purchaser” under an ordinance governing public hygiene, the South China Morning Post reported.
In Oct. 2019, a woman filed an official complaint after she bit into the bun and tasted something oddly reptilian. Nestled in the filling’s mixture of pork floss, seaweed and rice cake was a small lizard.
The woman had bought the bun at a Maxim’s Cakes outlet in Tuen Mun two days earlier.
Read more: Maxim’s bakery fined after customer discovers glove in bread
Magistrate Frances Leung called the case “outrageous” and said Maxim’s should have taken steps to ensure no animal could get into their food products.
It’s not the first time the chain has found itself at the center of unsavory food controversy. In 2015, students at a Baptist University dining hall, run by Maxim’s, reported discovering vermin—including a dead worm and a cockroach—in their food.
In 2014, a customer was served a dead cockroach with her order of Sichuan-style shrimp balls at Jade Garden, a Chinese restaurant in Tsim Sha Tsui operated by Maxim’s.
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