S’pore Food Authority Probes ‘Milking Cow’ After Bugs & Glass Found In Oats For Lactating Moms

In case you’re wondering what ‘Milking Cow’ is, that’s a brand name selling food, like oats, smoothies and muffins, to help breastfeeding moms produce better quantity and quality of breast milk for their children.

With food delivery apps like GrabFood making it super easy to order food straight to your day, it is easy to forget that food (and most things, really) are made by human hands.

And as humans, sometimes we make mistakes.

In the case of Milking Cow SG, the mistake is plastic and bugs, or so it seems.

Plastic Found In Milkshake, Bugs Found In Oats

On 12 Sep 2019, a Stomper bought some avocado milkshake from Milking Cow SG which was delivered on the same day.

When she drank it, she felt that something was wrong with the drink:

“It felt like I was swallowing a medicine pill.

“There was another piece which was bigger in my mouth. I tried biting it because I thought it was an undissolved sugar block.

“But it didn’t break, so I took it out. Only when I looked closely, I saw that it was like a plastic rock.”

Which meant that she probably swallowed a piece of plastic before realising it.

Her story, which also included finding stones in a packet of oats according to The Straits Times, would inspire more people to complain. One of them found glass blades in her oats.

Holy shit!

And as you can guess from the picture above, another customer found a bug in her oats.

This got the Singapore Food Agency (SFA) curious. Milking Cow is now under investigation.

But… what went wrong here?

What goes on behind the scenes that caused this shit show?

Well, the owner responded on 19 Sep 2019 on Facebook as well as Instagram.

Apology From Milking Cow SG

According to the post, the SFA had gone down to their premises and had not found any mishandling of food. They will also cancel and offer a full refund to anybody who doesn’t feel comfortable enough to eat their food.

View this post on Instagram

Dear customers and mommies, We have noticed that many mommies have been circulating about a case where a piece of plastic has been found in one of our Avocado Smoothies. Being in the F&B industry and also as a food producing company, we take hygiene and quality control very seriously. I would like to take this chance to sincerely apologise to all of you who have been affected by this case and we are in the midst of investigating this case. This case has been reported to SFA and we will cooperate with them fully. We also also glad to share that the Singapore Food Agency (SFA) has also came for an inspection on our premises this morning and has not found any mishandling of food products. That being said, we will be doing our part to ensure that current and future orders are thoroughly checked and controlled to ensure such cases will not occur again. Should you have pending order with us, and may not be comfortable in consuming our products, we fully understand. Kindly email us at [email protected] and we would assist to cancel and provide a full refund for your order. This has been an unfortunate case for our company and we do hope that you will not lose trust with us as we strive to become better, not only to improve our products' quality and control, but also to serve you better. With love, Milking Cow Mama

A post shared by Lactation Overnight Oats (@milkingcowsg) on Sep 18, 2019 at 10:53pm PDT

So far so good, right? Standard apologies and procedures for a food scandal.

Well not really. The next day’s apology brought light to behind the scenes operations for the business, and how they will improve from now on.

View this post on Instagram

Hi mummies, Just want to take this time to thank all the mummies that have dropped me email, WhatsApp, DMs and comments for support and encouragement to me during this time. It means sooooo much to me and to be very honest, I’m really very touched. 😢 Thank you everyone who have placed your orders online, even customers whom have stopped breastfeeding and customers who were there when we first started. I’m indeed very very grateful and thankful for actually seeing many incoming orders esp during times like this. Thank you for trusting me, and milking cow Sg 😢😢😢 I would be lying if I say I wasn’t affected personally because of this incident. I can’t help but feel really touched by the messages and love that I have received from everyone. I remember when I started out Milking Cow SG, almost 1.5 years back, we started small. We stayed up all night during baby fairs churning and churning our products to ensure there’s enough stocks and then me and my Husband will always look like zombies the next day. We work from 9.30am to 12am every single day, in hope to quicken the delivery dates so that mummies could receive the items at a quicker rate. On a side note, I miss my kids. 😟 Therefore, in other to rectify the situation, we would hope to improve our products and service to everyone by… 1. Increasing the manpower We would increase to manpower to be able to check on the raw materials from the suppliers to ensure that no foreign articles will be in them such as oats, chiaseeds etc. Manpower will also be increased during processing and packing of products to Ensure minimum error made and increase quality standards. 2. Re-plan kitchen processing layout to minimum errors We will get a professional consultant to guide in kitchen planning layout to improve the processing and production flow. 3. Installation of additional CCTV To ensure that all preparation process will be clearly captured in prevent any mishandling or unhygienic practices during production . . .

A post shared by Lactation Overnight Oats (@milkingcowsg) on Sep 19, 2019 at 5:55pm PDT

From the post, it seems like the owner had received much encouragement from her loyal customers even with the pictures.

And then the hard work that went on behind the scenes to run the business came to light. It seems like the business is merely one and a half years old and is operated by just two people: husband and wife.

This means that they have to work from 9.30 am to 12am every day. They also have to handling everything from emails, WhatsApp, DMs, message, marketing, photography, suppliers, logistics, productions, sourcing and other back end stuff.

According to their Facebook’s “about”, she is also currently a breastfeeding mother with her own child to take care of.

The business owner also mentioned in the post that she will:

1. Increase manpower for quality control
2. Replan kitchen processing layout with a professional consultant
3. Installing additional CCTVs to ensure production is hygienic and handled properly
4. Additional manpower for admin
5. New collection point for self-collection

Additionally, they would also be giving away 100 overnight oats on 28 Sep at 11am.

In other words, this is the full apology and transparency that’s more than just a “I’m sorry see ya”.

But I’m not the only one impressed.

Reactions To The Apology

It would seem like most of the comments to the transparency was well received.

Although most of the comments understand that it was a mistake, it would appear that the damage to their reputation might already be done.

It’s never easy to start a business.

Here’s to hoping that all these hygiene issues would just be a thing of the past.

Here’s what NCMPs are, and what to expect after GE2025:

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