Tiong Bahru Bakery employee seen standing on food counter with shoes on; cafe apologises

Homegrown F&B chain Tiong Bahru Bakery has apologised after an employee was caught on camera standing on a food counter at its Jem outlet.

Stomp contributor JL expressed hygiene concerns after witnessing the incident on Nov 17, at around 5.20pm.

A video that JL took while passing by the store shows a male staff member with one shoe-clad foot on the counter so that he can reach a cupboard.

Uncovered bread can be seen in front of the employee.

At least two other workers were also present in the store, but had their backs facing that male employee.

JL told Stomp: "I noticed the staff member doing some stocking up with one of his feet on the table where food is placed and probably prepared.

"This is totally unacceptable. The same shoe goes everywhere, including the toilet, and one can imagine the amount of bacteria on it.

"This is not just a failure of one person, but also the staff who were working nearby and probably the supervisor who failed to notice the unacceptable practice. Either the staff are not trained and have very poor awareness of what is acceptable or they totally can't care less about such acts."

In response to a Stomp query, a spokeswoman for Tiong Bahru Bakery said: "This incident has been brought to our attention and we do sincerely apologise for this.

"We take our hygiene and safety practices very seriously, it is of upmost importance to us.

"We have taken immediate action to address this with the staff involved as well as with the team at Tiong Bahru Bakery Jem. We have also reminded the entire team of our hygiene and safety practices with the rest of the group."

The spokeswoman assured that steps have been taken to ensure that such incidents do not happen in the future and added: "We will continue to take necessary measures and precautions regarding matters of hygiene and safety."

In a separate incident, Stomp contributor Sam expressed similar concerns after seeing a worker standing on cartons of canned drinks while topping up a vending machine at Lasalle.

Sam said: "As he was not tall enough to fill the top row, he stood on the cartons of drinks to raise himself up. But with this, his shoe soles came in direct contact with the can lids as he had already cut the plastic sheet cover on the cartons.

"This could be dangerous. Imagine what he had stepped on before that... The can lids could be contaminated. What would happen if we drink directly from the can?"

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This article was first published in Stomp. Permission required for reproduction.