China court punishes chefs who put drug in ‘rather unhygienic’ food to prevent diarrhoea

Two chefs in China have been handed suspended prison sentences for adding antibiotics to food in a misguided attempt to prevent customers from developing diarrhoea after eating in their restaurant.

Last month, a court in Nantong, eastern China’s Jiangsu province, sentenced a chef, surnamed Sha, and his colleague identified as Fu, to two years and 18 months in jail respectively, on the charge of producing and selling toxic and harmful food.

Their sentences were suspended for an unidentified period, according to the Modern Express.

The pair were also fined a combined 160,000 yuan (US$22,000) and ordered to apologise publicly via the media.

They were caught in September last year after a restaurant employee told the authorities that some chefs had injected gentamicin sulphate into dishes before serving them to customers.

Law enforcement officials promptly arrived at the restaurant, the name of which was not released in the report, for an inspection.