Introduction:A Shanghai consumer discovering a whole plastic bag in their drink has sparked a food safety storm in the tea beverage industry. The involved Jasmine Milk White outlet, due to lack of surveillance footage, could not reconstruct the incident. This article details the event, industry-speculated causes, and supplements standard tea beverage production procedures along with key anti-foreign object measures to help readers understand the details behind beverage safety.
Recently, news that a large plastic bag was found in a bubble tea has caused an uproar on social media. On March 22, a consumer in Shanghai found a large, transparent plastic bag with the brand’s label in a drink purchased from the well-known tea brand “Jasmine Milk White.” The incident quickly drew public attention and trended on Weibo.
According to the consumer’s account, she felt something blocking the straw when inserting it, and upon tearing open the seal, she actually pulled out a plastic bag from the cup — one that was clearly larger than the drink cup itself.
Footage released shows the plastic bag floating on the surface of the milk tea. Due to its similar color, it was not easily noticeable at first glance, but once removed, it was clear that its size was even larger than the cup, and the amount of milk tea in the cup had noticeably decreased. The brand label attached to the bag further led consumers to question the rigor of the production process.
The incident has sparked widespread discussion, with many netizens questioning the food safety management of tea beverage shops. Some industry insiders speculate that an employee might have accidentally stuffed the plastic bag into the cup while unpacking cup packaging, and due to the way it was placed, it went unnoticed in the end.
However, some professionals in the tea beverage industry pointed out that each drink has a standard recipe and a specific shaker cup measurement. If a plastic bag occupied space inside the cup, the prepared milk tea would either overflow or be noticeably short in volume when poured in, and the lightweight nature of the plastic bag would cause it to float on the liquid surface — under normal operations, such an anomaly should have been immediately noticed.
As the incident unfolded, the involved consumer revealed on the evening of the 22nd that they had reached an agreement with the store and received 1,000 yuan in compensation, but requested further explanation from the outlet on how the plastic bag ended up in the drink. The surveillance video provided by the store, due to non-compliant equipment installation, failed to clearly capture the preparation area and thus could not provide valid evidence. The outlet has since carried out rectifications regarding the surveillance issue.
On the evening of March 23, the official Weibo account of Jasmine Milk White issued an apology statement, acknowledging that the incident stemmed from negligence in the outlet’s operational procedures, which led to the foreign object not being detected in time, and announced the immediate closure of the involved outlet for rectification. This move demonstrates the brand’s emphasis on food safety issues and also serves as a reminder to the industry to strengthen quality control and supervision in the production process.
In addition to drawing consumer attention to tea beverage safety, this incident also highlights the importance of compliant surveillance equipment and standardized operational procedures. Industry experts suggest that tea beverage shops should regularly review their production processes, ensure that each step has clear quality control standards, and install surveillance covering key areas to prevent similar incidents from happening again.
Consumers, when enjoying their drinks, if they find any foreign objects, should retain evidence and promptly provide feedback to the store to safeguard their own rights.
The above content is compiled by CoffeeHunters, a coffee news website.
