Introduction:A consumer in Hubei purchased an unopened lemonade from Mixue Ice Cream & Tea and discovered a small black insect inside. The store’s response has sparked widespread discussion, highlighting loopholes in food safety management. This article details the incident, public reactions, and the brand’s multiple food safety issues this year, exploring the importance of service and quality control in the food and beverage industry.
The well-known tea chain Mixue Ice Cream & Tea has once again been embroiled in a food safety controversy. A consumer in Xiantao, Hubei, bought an unopened lemonade, only to find a small black insect inside upon opening it. The store’s response left the consumer deeply disappointed.
The incident quickly sparked discussions on social media platforms, with related topics even trending on Weibo, garnering over 270 million views. The consumer reported finding an unidentified black insect in her unopened lemonade and immediately brought it to the attention of the store staff. However, the store’s response was: “What can I do about it? I don’t know why there would be insects in the drink. There’s no way to handle it, but it’s fine.”
Mixue Ice Cream & Tea’s headquarters customer service later told the media that they would further investigate the matter. The incident has drawn strong dissatisfaction from netizens, with most comments arguing that a store unable to take even basic responsibility is unfit to continue operating in the food and beverage industry.
Many netizens criticized the store’s response as extremely perfunctory. One person bluntly stated: “This attitude is simply unbelievable. There wasn’t even an apology or compensation. Shouldn’t they at least express regret and offer another drink?” Another netizen sarcastically remarked: “‘No way to handle it’ means the insect just flew in on its own, and I can’t do anything about it; ‘it’s fine’ means the insect won’t kill you, so go ahead and drink it.”
In fact, this is not the first time Mixue Ice Cream & Tea has made headlines for food safety issues. According to statistics, from March to November 2022, the brand faced media exposure for food safety problems on average every 15 days, including incidents involving expired ingredients, insects, sticks, and even flies in drinks.
In August of this year, Mixue Ice Cream & Tea was repeatedly reported for foreign objects in its milk tea and insect eggs found in tea bags. Although the brand has been fined multiple times for food safety violations—such as a 12,000-yuan penalty for finding an insect in a lemonade—similar incidents continue to occur.
Public records show that Mixue Ice Cream & Tea was founded in 1997 and rapidly expanded through a low-price strategy and franchise model, with its main market concentrated in third- and fourth-tier cities. As of this year, its number of stores has exceeded 22,000, making it the largest new tea brand in China by store count. The brand is also actively preparing for an IPO, aiming to become the first “new tea chain” listed on the A-share market.
However, as the number of stores has surged, quality control has failed to keep pace, leading to frequent food safety incidents. On the consumer complaint platform “Black Cat Complaints,” there have been over 4,139 complaints about Mixue Ice Cream & Tea, primarily concerning foreign objects in food, poor service attitudes from staff, and difficulties with refunds.
Food safety and customer experience are the foundations of the food and beverage industry. Once consumer trust is lost, brands face the risk of being淘汰 from the market. Experts point out that only by strictly managing supply chains and store operation processes, and continuously improving product and service quality, can brands achieve stable growth in fierce competition.
The above content is compiled by CoffeeHunters, a coffee news website.
