TOKYO: The grilled eel lunch boxes sold at a Yokohama eatery that led to the death of a woman and caused around 160 others to suffer from food poisoning were tied to unhygienic kitchen practices, said the Japanese city’s health authorities on Monday (Aug 5).
The meals, purchased on July 24 and 25, led to 75 men and 84 women reporting ill, including diarrhoea and vomiting. The food was sold in an eatery in Keikyu department store.
The food poisoning was traced to Nihonbashi Unagi Isesada, an eel specialist restaurant with multiple branches in Tokyo that was founded in 1946.
Eel, or unagi in Japanese, is a local delicacy popularly eaten on the Midsummer Day of the Ox – it falls on July 24 and Aug 5 in 2024 – to beat the summer heat.
One woman in her 90s, who was taken to hospital on July 24 after consuming an unagi bento meal, died a day later. Health officials have said the death has not been causally tied to the food as she also had a chronic condition.
Swabs on the kitchen counters and cooking utensils detected traces of staphylococcus aureus, a bacteria commonly found on and transmitted through skin.
The bacteria was also detected in stool samples from 19 infected diners.
Investigations by the Yokohama authorities uncovered evidence of kitchen staff not washing their hands properly or wearing gloves when handling food.
Kitchen records on the days the meals were prepared were also found to be lacking, with suspicion that some employees might have had wounds on their hands.
The bacteria could also have multiplied as the meals were stored for a long time in the lunch boxes.
More than 1,760 grilled unagi meals were sold on July 24 and 25, likely exceeding usual production capacity at the restaurant.
The kitchen staff have been advised to go for hygiene classes. Restaurant supervisors have been told to be more aware of kitchen processes and instruct employees to comply with hygiene management and food safety standards.
A suspension on operations at Nihonbashi Unagi Isesada’s Yokohama outlet, officially imposed on July 29, remains in place.
With this outbreak, the number of food poisoning cases recorded by the Yokohama authorities from January to August 2024 is just short of tripling that from the same period in 2023. Then, 57 cases were logged. - The Straits Times/ANN
