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Happy Dining Ltd prosecuted for a string of food hygiene offences


Gurpit Dhillon the company director, who spoke on behalf of the restaurant trading as FeD (Happy Dining Ltd) was ordered to pay over £14,000 at Cardiff Magistrates' Court yesterday.

The guilty plea on behalf of the company - Happy Dining Ltd - related to 16 food hygiene offences.

FeD, which stood for Food Exploration Destination, was an all you can eat buffet and sold a range of different cuisines including Chinese, Indian, Italian, Japanese and Mexican.

Trading from St Mary Anne Street, by the Motorpoint Arena,the business opened in January 2015 and was a 13,000 sq ft restaurant based over two floors and was reported, at the time, as a £2m investment.

Between October 2017 and December 2017, officers from Shared Regulatory Services visited the restaurant five times and discovered a catalogue of food hygiene failings.

It is understood that the restaurant stopped trading and closed in February 2018.

Happy Dining Ltd was ordered to pay a total of £14,735 for a range of offences, including inadequate staff training; failure to ensure the food was protected against contamination which was likely to render the food unfit for human consumption, as well as failure to ensure the food premise was clean and in good repair.

Councillor Michael Michael, Cabinet Member responsible for Shared Regulatory Services at Cardiff Council, said: "Cardiff has a great offer of restaurants across the city, but it is important that these businesses comply with the necessary legislation to meet the required standards.

"This is a case, where I believe the management stopped trading, after they knew that the authorities were investigating them, in the hope that a prosecution wouldn't be brought to court.

"The District Judge made it clear when passing sentencing that the business had clearly failed to meet the expectations of the industry and there was a real risk of contamination from raw food products with cooked food products. This isn't acceptable and our officers will continue their work, to investigate any food business which poses a risk to their customers."

The company was fined a total of £10,500, ordered to pay £4,065 in costs with a victim surcharge of £170.