A local consumer advocacy group yesterday warned the public that convenience-store food warmers were unsanitary, serving as breeding grounds for bacteria.
"These hot, wet food containers can easily become a breeding ground for microorganisms," said Shyu Yuan-tay (徐源泰), a member of the Consumers' Foundation (消基會) and a horticulture professor at National Taiwan University.
Food warmers should keep items warmer than 600C in order to kill unwanted bacteria, he added.
Even scarier, the lack of covers on many stores hot-snack containers makes them perfect places for migrating viruses to rest.
"Imagine a customer sneezing in the store and then the air-borne virus lands in the food warmer," he said. Shyu was responding to questions after the foundation unveiled a report highlighting poor quality control in convenience stores.
Improperly heated hot dogs is also a problem.
"More than 75 percent of the convenience stores in Taipei County keep their hot dogs at temperatures below 600C," said Tsai Chai-ban (
The open-air hot dog warmers also pose a health risk, Tsai said. In October, the foundation tested 123 convenience stores in the Taipei County, conducting quality control checks on hot snacks as well as cold.
Chilled foods like noodles, sushi, sandwiches, yogurt and milk must all be refrigerated below 70C.
However, 29 retailers or 23.6 percent of the stores checked didn't meet this requirement.
Niko Mart Co (
In addition, more than two-thirds of the snacks in food warmers at President Chain Store Corp's 7-Eleven, Hi-Life International Co (萊爾富), Family Mart Co (全家) and OK Mart Co failed to meet the anti-bacterial standard.
Tsai stressed that with increasing numbers of people turning to convenience stores for quick meals, the food sanitation issue is more important than ever.
According to 7-Eleven, currently sales of hot snacks and fresh food account for 15 percent of the chain's total sales, and that figure is estimated to grow two or three percent annually over the next few years.
The foundation's report aims to raise public awareness as well as force retailers to improve food quality control, he added.
The effort is paying off.
"We've asked all of our outlets to recheck food container temperatures," said Chang Cheng (
SJ Express has also vowed to make some improvements.
"The company will send supervisors to stores to demonstrate how to preserve food correctly and improve our quality control next week," said Tai Chun-ying (戴君穎), an executive at SJ Express.
The company has ties with 250 convenience stores in Taiwan, all of them are franchised rather than directly operated. Franchising makes the problem difficult to remedy.
"This is a headache because our headquarters aren't involved in individual store operations," he added.
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