Riley Rhonda Tay shared the incident on Facebook on July 25, saying she decided to speak out because she was dissatisfied with how the eatery handled the situation, AsiaOne reported.
She said she had bought three cups of soy milk from Alley Wei’s Tampines Mall outlet at about 2:40 p.m. on July 20 before accompanying her parents to a nearby traditional Chinese medicine clinic.
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A cup of hot soy milk. Photo from Xiaohongshu |
While at the clinic, Tay said she discovered a dead cockroach at the bottom of her cup and was disgusted. After the appointment, she returned to the outlet at about 5:50 p.m. to report the incident.
“[The] cashier apologised and offered a refund with replacement of the same soybean milk!” Tay claimed in her post.
She added that a chef working in the kitchen told her: “All we can do is refund you money and replace you [with] another [of the] same soybean milk.”
Tay said she repeatedly declined the offer. She believed the restaurant should have immediately removed the “suspected contaminated source”, offered a full refund, replaced any other “non-contaminated food” purchased by affected customers, and stopped selling the “suspected contaminated food source”. The eatery did not take those steps, she said.
“Till I left the restaurant with full anger, the entire pot of contaminated soybean milk was still on sale, and they were still taking orders when I made a big scene!” she wrote.
After escalating the matter, Tay said a member of the eatery’s management contacted her. She said she asked for a public apology on social media rather than a verbal apology or a private settlement, but did not receive one.
In response to 8world, Alley Wei said the incident had been reported to its management and operations team. The company said the outlet is cleaned regularly and undergoes monthly pest control inspections.
Following the complaint, the Tampines Mall outlet thoroughly cleaned its food preparation, cooking and storage areas. However, because the drink had been removed from the store about three hours before it was reported, the company said it could not determine how the cockroach ended up in the cup or whether it originated from the outlet.
Alley Wei added that it had discarded the suspected contaminated batch and reminded staff to follow proper food hygiene and customer complaint handling procedures.
The company also said the incident had been reported to Tampines Mall’s management. Representatives from the SFA later inspected the outlet and found no major hygiene issues. SFA said it is investigating the incident and may contact the woman for more information.