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• Xinchen Liu, owner of Samurai Bowl in Colombo St, Christchurch, sold toxic food and breached immigration rules.
• Now she’s been sentenced to six months’ home detention and fined $30,000 for her actions.
• Judge Raoul Neave described Liu as “cavalier” with public health and worker exploitation risks.

A restaurant owner sold toxic food to customers and directed the recalled product to be eaten by her staff.

When unsafe levels of Staphylococcus aureus were detected in samples of frozen food at Samurai Bowl on Colombo St, Christchurch, posing a risk of food poisoning to customers, authorities ordered owner Xinchen Liu to recall and destroy all ramen meals.

Instead, she directed staff to repurpose the ingredients – some of which were served to customers and others were given to staff as meals while on duty.

Samurai Bowl on Colombo St, Christchurch, served unsafe food for 18 months and breached the Immigration Act. Photo / George Heard

Now Liu, the sole owner and director, has been sentenced after failing to ensure food in her restaurant was safe and suitable to eat.

The courts found she was also reckless as to whether that failure created risk to lives when she directed staff to retain recalled meals and contravened the Immigration Act by employing staff who were either meant to be working elsewhere or not lawfully entitled to work in New Zealand.

In May 2019 unsafe levels of the bacterium were detected in samples of the frozen ramen meals.

The levels detected in two samples were 1100 cfu/g and 12,000 cfu/g. Levels above 1000 cfu/g are considered unsatisfactory. Levels above 10,000 are considered unsafe.

A month later, a recall of all Samurai Bowl ramen meals began. All frozen meals manufactured after Liu took control of the business three months prior were included as her poor record keeping did not allow specific batches to be traced.

According to the summary of facts, Liu conducted a recall as required and sent food safety officers pictures of discarded meal wrappers.

The recall order was closed in August on the expectation she had done what was required to remove the risk to the public.

However, she had done the exact opposite and had not disposed of the recalled meals.

Recalled meals were instead stored in freezers and a quantity of them were defrosted, separated into their component parts of miso soup, noodles and meat, which was then put into containers and re-frozen.

Liu directed that the recalled meals be available for staff to eat while the miso soup and meat from the meals was served to customers.

Between October 2019 and May 2021, Liu employed three staff, two of whom held work visas with conditions only allowing them to work at unrelated companies.

The third was not lawfully able to work in New Zealand.

‘Extreme carelessness’

Liu was sentenced in the Christchurch District Court on Tuesday to six months’ home detention and fined $30,000.

Judge Raoul Neave said Liu had misled immigration officers as to the status of her workers while helping conceal their immigration status.

Judge Neave also described her as “somewhat cavalier with the health of her staff and the public”.

“There is extreme carelessness.”

The judge said it was important to note that breaches of the immigration scheme undermined proper determinations of who could be in the country.

“There is a real risk of exploitation of workers, it undermines New Zealand’s international reputation.”

Judge Neave fined Liu $20,000 plus $149 court costs for the Ministry of Primary Industries related charges and $10,000 plus $149 court costs for the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment related charges.

New Zealand Food Safety acting deputy director general Jenny Bishop said: “most people do the right thing, but Ms Liu didn’t do as she claimed and stored the meals in freezers.

“This was deliberate and reckless behaviour and Ms Liu’s actions had the potential to cause sickness and health risk for a number of customers.”

MBIE manager of investigations Jason Perry confirmed the three workers were in New Zealand legally on various visas. However, they breached those visa conditions while working for Liu.

Of the three workers involved in the case, one chose to leave New Zealand. The others remained on valid visas, working with Immigration New Zealand to ensure they continued to comply with immigration requirements, Perry said.

It is not the first time the Colombo St restaurant has been embroiled in controversy.

In 2018, prior to Liu purchasing the business, Samurai Bowl, trading under Japan Power, was fined $70,000 for employment breaches. At the time, the Labour Inspectorate described the offences as “systemic” breaches of the Holidays Act.

The company said the breaches were not intentional and arose from a lack of understanding of the law. It complied with an improvement notice issued in May 2017 and paid $23,927 in arrears to 25 affected current and former employees.

Al Williams is an Open Justice reporter for the New Zealand Herald, based in Christchurch. He has worked in daily and community titles in New Zealand and overseas for the last 16 years. Most recently he was editor of the HC Post, based in Whangamatā. He was previously deputy editor of Cook Islands News.