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(CNN) — A popular Japanese restaurant chain has closed nearly all of its 2,000 stores for cleaning this week, after a rat and a bug were found in its food.
Sukiya, the country’s largest chain serving gyudon, or beef bowls, announced the temporary closures following an insect contamination incident at one of its suburban Tokyo locations on Friday. This came just weeks after a rat was found in a bowl of miso soup in late January in an outlet in Tottori, western Japan.
Apologizing for the “great inconvenience and concern caused,” Sukiya said in a Saturday statement that most of its branches will shut from March 31 to April 4 to address contamination problems and pest infestations.
To calm growing anger over the food safety incidents, Sukiya took to X on Monday to offer its “deepest apologies” again.
“We take this situation seriously and sincerely,” it said. “We will do our utmost to maintain a safe and clean environment.”
Following the incidents, both affected locations temporarily shut down to carry out extermination work and inspections.
Despite an image of a rat in a bowl of miso soup circulating widely on social media for weeks since January, Sukiya did not confirm the incident until late March. In a separate statement on March 22, it said it would “thoroughly review and implement further measures to prevent pest and rodent entry.”
The statement attributed the mishap to an employee failing to look at the miso soup before serving and said no other customers were affected.
Following the latest contamination incident on Friday in Tokyo, Sukiya said the affected customer had received a refund. It is conducting an on-site investigation to determine the cause.
As of early 2024, Sukiya operates 1,957 stores domestically and has 675 foreign branches, including in China, Taiwan, Thailand and Brazil, according to its latest annual report. Yoshinoya, another popular beef bowl chain with outlets in Japan and abroad, is the second largest chain with 1,259 stores in the country.
Zensho Holdings owns Sukiya, and runs multiple other Japanese and international restaurant brands.
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