FamilyMart employee fired after video shows him licking items

TOKYO (TR) – Convenience store operator FamilyMart Co. on Monday announced the dismissal of a male employee after the emergence of a video showing him licking items, the latest of several similar incidents involving a food-related company in the last week, reports TV Asahi (Feb. 12).

In the clip, which was uploaded to a social-networking service, the employee was shown licking several items, including a packaged food product and the cap of a plastic bottle, before placing them in a bag at an outlet in Kariya City, Aichi Prefecture.

During the filming, the person operating the camera, who is an acquaintance of the employee, can be heard laughing.

Over the last week, two other companies have been forced to deal with similar incidents.

On February 7, Seven Eleven Japan Co. announced the dismissal of two male employees after an online video showed one of them using chopsticks to eat noodles direct from an oden hot pot in an outlet of chain 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. “We will work to prevent a recurrence of the same incident,” the operator of the chain said.