A large food company in Park Royal received a fine of more than £113,000 for serious failures in food and hygiene safety – including rodent droppings.
On 4 March, Uxbridge Magistrates’ Court heard that frozen food manufacturer Hypergood Ltd of Coronation Road, trading as Royal Gourmet, pleaded guilty to 11 offences.
The company was ordered to pay a fine of £9,091 per offence, along with a victim surcharge of £2,000 and costs of £11,450. In total, the company must pay a fine of £113,415.
The size of the fine reflects years of non-compliance with food safety and hygiene rules and ignored interventions from Ealing Council, scaling up from informal advice to formal warnings, and, ultimately, being instructed to stop food production altogether, following a failed inspection in 2022.
Poor cleaning and mouse droppings
As a business supplying Chinese-style meat and dairy products – including steamed buns, siu mai, wontons, dessert buns, and roasted duck – to its own Royal China group of restaurants and speciality supermarkets, Hypergood Ltd is classified as an ‘approved establishment’.
That means that it must follow more stringent legal rules because of the high-risk and large-scale nature of its work. Compared to non-approved food businesses, it is required to maintain higher hygiene standards and have systems in place to protect public health.
During 3 consecutive, unannounced inspections between May 2023 and January 2024, the council’s food safety team discovered serious breaches, such as poor temperature control, inadequate cleaning, and damaged equipment. Mouse droppings were found throughout food preparation rooms.
Taking action
Since 2020, the council has taken a series of measures to force the business to maintain proper standards. This has included issuing warning letters and legal notices during consecutive visits.
Despite receiving many hours of support from council officers, and efforts to educate the business to make it aware of the risks, the court heard that Hypergood Ltd continued to operate with little regard to basic food hygiene requirements.
Since 2022, food safety inspectors have visited Hypergood Ltd a total of 22 times. It was only found to be compliant with legal requirements on 6 of those occasions.
After consecutive non-compliant visits, the business eventually had its approval suspended in 2022, which prevented it from producing food because of the immediate risks to consumers. Without these inspections and interventions, the business could have continued operating in unsafe conditions, potentially leading to illness or fatalities among its consumers.
The court heard that Hypergood Ltd was prosecuted by Thames Water in 2019 for allowing oily factory waste to enter a sewer near the river Brent for almost a year. It pleaded guilty to 20 breaches of the Water Industry Act 1991 and was ordered by magistrates to pay a total of more than £332,000.
Holding businesses accountable
Councillor Kamaljit Nagpal, the council’s cabinet member for decent living incomes, said: “Food businesses have a responsibility to protect their customers by applying the highest possible safety standards to their operations. If they fail to do so, it can pose a serious health risk to the public.
“As one of the boroughs with the highest number of food manufacturers in the UK, our outstanding food safety team is actively supporting businesses to maintain high standards. We always take the strongest possible action against the minority of businesses that break the rules and needlessly put consumers at risk. As part of that promise, we welcome this decision from the court to hold this business accountable.”
For more information on food safety, visit the council website.
