Man finds cockroach in Pepper Lunch meal ordered online

SINGAPORE – A man has reported seeing a bug in a Pepper Lunch meal that his daughter ordered from a food delivery platform.

In a Facebook post on Saturday, Mr Lee Steven said she had ordered the “Chicken Pepper Rice Bowl Set A” using GrabFood from the Japanese restaurant chain’s outlet at Compass One in Sengkang.

He added: “After a few bites, she noticed that there was a cockroach in the bowl which seemed to be cooked. She felt very traumatised and nauseous.”

Photos in the post show an insect on the rice in a plastic container.

In response to queries from The Straits Times, Pepper Lunch said its relevant area manager, along with his staff members, “activated pest management in a timely manner” on Saturday.

The pest management team did its checks and treatment at 9am on Sunday before the outlet opened, according to Pepper Lunch, and it arranged for another check at 4pm on the same day, despite its outlet staff observing “no signs of pest activities”.

Pepper Lunch added that it reviewed its past pest management reports for other outlets on Monday and found that “all controls were in place, no pest activity was reported”, and that the Compass One outlet did not report any pest issues in the last three months.

It said: “Our customer service team has contacted the customer, apologised, and shared our investigations and rectification actions done so far. The customer has also been refunded for his order via the Grab Delivery Platform.

“The Pepper Lunch Management takes a serious view of cleanliness, food safety and quality. We sincerely apologise for any inconvenience caused to our customers and are working with our pest management vendor to take extra precautions to prevent future occurrences.”

The Singapore Food Agency said it is looking into the matter.

• Additional reporting by Ang Qing