Three sushi restaurants in Dublin have been shut down as the Food Safety Authority says they were operating from a bedroom.
Koi Sushi, Nagoya Sushi and Kyoto Sushi - all located in Santry - have been issued with closure orders and the FSAI says its due to unregistered online sushi takeaways operating from a bedroom of a house where there were breaches of food legislation, food safety controls, and record keeping.
Five closure orders were served last month on restaurants in Dublin and Cork where issues include a rat seen in the premises, rodent activity in food preparation areas, and rat droppings posing a serious risk to consumers.
The Enforcement Orders were issued by environmental health officers in the Health Service Executive (HSE).
Serious Risk
Dr Pamela Byrne, Chief Executive, FSAI expressed particular concern that this month’s Enforcement Orders included three Closure Orders in relation to individuals running online unregistered and unsupervised food businesses selling a range of sushi products from the bedroom of a house: "Running a food business that has not been registered and is therefore, not supervised is totally unacceptable and poses a very serious risk to consumers’ health.
"In these instances, the unregistered businesses were producing sushi without any hygiene or temperature controls. Sushi is a very high-risk product because it contains raw fish which must be kept chilled to reduce the growth of dangerous bacteria. It can also contain cooked rice, which is a ready-to-eat product that must be kept chilled. In these instances, the absence of a food safety management system, no monitoring of the cold chain and no evidence of traceability of raw ingredients posed a grave and immediate danger to consumer health.
"Consumers should only buy from established food businesses. If anyone is in any doubt about the legitimacy of a food business, they can contact us via our online complaint form and we will follow up on it."
