Video shows 7-Eleven employee spitting food item back into oden pot

TOKYO (TR) – A video uploaded to the internet shows a male employee at an outlet of convenience store chain 7-Eleven spitting a food item back into a pot, the latest of several similar incidents involving a food-related company to emerge since last week.

According to TV Asahi (Feb. 13), Seven Eleven Japan Co., the operator of the chain, is in the process of speaking with the manager of the outlet and determining the identity of the employee. “We will deal with the matter strictly,” the company said.

In the clip, which was uploaded to a social-networking service (SNS) on Wednesday, another employee uses chopsticks to feed the male employee an item from the oden hot pot, which typically contains a variety of fish and noodle dishes. After momentarily holding the item in his mouth, he then spits it back into the pot.

Since last week, three other incidents — including another involving 7-Eleven — have emerged.

On Monday, convenience store operator FamilyMart Co. announced the dismissal of a male employee of an outlet in Kariya City, Aichi Prefecture after he was shown in a video to have licked several items, including a packaged food product and the cap of a plastic bottle, before placing them in a bag.

On February 7, Seven Eleven Japan announced the dismissal of two other male employees after an online video showed one of them using chopsticks to eat noodles direct from the oden pot in an outlet of 7-Eleven. Two days later, the company said that it was considering legal action against the employees.

Last week, two employees of large sushi chain Kura Sushi resigned after the emergence of a video online that showed them tossing a sliced fish into the trash and pulling it back onto a cutting board in the kitchen of an outlet in Osaka Prefecture.