In order to register with Uber Eats, restaurant owners have to fill out an application. They don’t even have to lie about not having a proper food hygiene rating, it turns out.
To show just how risky ordering food on the platform can be, BBC News conducted an experiment: they set up a fake restaurant, called Best Burger Corporation, or BBC for short. They filled out the application online and promised they would get a food hygiene rating “soon.”
In other words, they didn’t lie about not having one. Still, Uber Eats, without conducting a single identity or food safety check, sent them the gear they needed to get started. So the BBC guy took out his home barbecue, set it up in his home garden and set to cooking.
He occasionally dropped the patty on the ground, made no effort to meet basic hygiene standards or, for that matter, to make a decent-looking burger. He still got an order, which Uber Eats sent through.
The order came from food safety expert Mark McGlinn. The Uber Eats driver came to the reporter’s house and, despite the fact that he saw him cooking out of his garden, still took the order and delivered it to the customer. McGlinn, in this (fortunate) case.
“I am astonished by what I saw. But also, very very alarmed,” McGlinn says. “We're in desperate times, it seems to me if very very large food delivery platforms can be operating in this way.”
Heather Hancock, chair of the Food Standards Agency, says she’s “almost speechless with horror” that something like this can happen, where customers can buy food cooked with no regard to food safety, only because Uber Eats promises checks that they never perform.
In a statement to the outlet, Uber Eats says this incident is a “breach of our food safety policy” which has forced them “to upgrade our sign-up requirements.” They promise not all restaurants on the platform are like Best Burger Corporation and stress that they “are working hard to ensure this does not happen again.”
In other words, they didn’t lie about not having one. Still, Uber Eats, without conducting a single identity or food safety check, sent them the gear they needed to get started. So the BBC guy took out his home barbecue, set it up in his home garden and set to cooking.
He occasionally dropped the patty on the ground, made no effort to meet basic hygiene standards or, for that matter, to make a decent-looking burger. He still got an order, which Uber Eats sent through.
The order came from food safety expert Mark McGlinn. The Uber Eats driver came to the reporter’s house and, despite the fact that he saw him cooking out of his garden, still took the order and delivered it to the customer. McGlinn, in this (fortunate) case.
“I am astonished by what I saw. But also, very very alarmed,” McGlinn says. “We're in desperate times, it seems to me if very very large food delivery platforms can be operating in this way.”
Heather Hancock, chair of the Food Standards Agency, says she’s “almost speechless with horror” that something like this can happen, where customers can buy food cooked with no regard to food safety, only because Uber Eats promises checks that they never perform.
In a statement to the outlet, Uber Eats says this incident is a “breach of our food safety policy” which has forced them “to upgrade our sign-up requirements.” They promise not all restaurants on the platform are like Best Burger Corporation and stress that they “are working hard to ensure this does not happen again.”