Mum’s Kitchen & Cherish Delights’ License Suspended After Nearly 40 Food Poisoning Cases

By
Victor Fong
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You open up the Goody Feed app, expecting another Don’t Say Bojio deal or some kind of happy news to occur.

Since you’re probably always hungry you’re expecting some tantalising food deal you can’t wait to spend your hard-earned money on.

But nope. Real-life hits hard. Another case of mass food poisoning. It’s almost as if there’s a monthly quota to hit for food poisoning cases. (And we don’t even write about all the cases here.)

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Or maybe it’s just a case of more people nowadays reporting food poisoning from being more knowledgeable about the subject.

My less-than-medically-certified mother would often say “letting it out is good for you” when I get a case of food poisoning.

Like somehow, my chocolate starfish singing “Let it go~ Let it go~” in the toilet is some kind of voodoo magic that can purge all evils from my body.

You’re probably confused by this Gif if you’re just skimming. Let’s be honest. Do I really want to search for “diarrhoea gif”? / Image: Giphy

Anyway, back to the cases.

39 People Hit With Food Poisoning, 3 Hospitalised

This was actually the total number of two cases combined. One happened on 31 August 2019, and the other on 2 September 2019.

Ministry of Health and Singapore Food Agency both released in the press about the suspension of licenses of Mum’s Kitchen Catering from 10 Sep and Cherish Delights from 11 September.

Not much else is known about the food poisoning cases, except two of the hospitalised have been discharged, and the remaining is still in the hospital.

Unrelated to the food poisoning, Mum’s Kitchen Catering recently (29 August 2019) got an award for Foodline‘s Top 5 Best Review Award 2018/2019 and FoodLine Most Popular Caterer Award 2018/2019.

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Image: Mum’s Kitchen Catering Facebook

So, uh… at least the food was good…?

Requirements Before Resuming Work

Food Handlers and food hygiene officers working there are required to re-attend and pass the Basic Food Hygiene Course before they start work again.

The caterers are also ordered to clean and sanitise the premises, utensils and equipment.

Shimei East Kitchen: Coincidence?

If you see their addresses, it’s interesting to note that they both operate in Shimei East Kitchen in Bedok North. And both units are located on the second storey.

This isn’t the first time some caterer from Shimei East Kitchen caused food poisoning.

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This includes a case last year December by Chilli Api Catering, causing 24 cases of food poisoning; and November by FoodTalks Caterer & Manufacturer, causing 131 people in a learning camp to have food poisoning.

But before you start avoiding the place like the plague, Shimei East Kitchen is a six-storey industrial building with 101 units for food businesses. Maybe there is something going on at that specific location, but it’s not super hard evidence.

Right now, it’s just like because my school got one siao gina who eat ketchup with well-done steak, you start to think my school all siao one. 

What is more interesting to me, is that while the licenses in these two cases got suspended, another case with more than 250 people falling ill got a hygiene downgrade.

I can’t tell you which one in the industry is considered more serious, but as a consumer, seeing a ‘C’ or an ‘A’ doesn’t really do much to me. I’ll still buy from the ‘C’ grade hawker with a longer queue compared to the ‘A’.

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Considering I can’t even Google search “Mum’s Kitchen Catering Hygiene Rating” and get an answer in a full 5 minutes search, I’m going to say a license suspension sounds more serious. (They are both grade A.)

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Victor Fong
Email: [email protected]