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The story
Food poisoning caused by chilled crab ramen sold by “Komeo’s Shop” in Tokyo has grown from 78 victims last week to 123. According to reports, the shop failed to keep the hygiene management records required under the Food Sanitation Act, and the Staphylococcus aureus detected is a bacterium known for easily contaminating food via cuts or wounds on the hands. On 5ch, sympathy for owner Komeo’s background and hopes for his comeback clashed with harsh criticism of the shop’s lax hygiene management, while questions were also raised about the qualification system itself and the fact that the group’s brick-and-mortar restaurant remains open.
Fri, 9/11, 5:00 PM
Regarding the “chilled crab ramen” that caused the food poisoning, it has come to light that the shop had not kept the hygiene management records required by law. The shop’s representative, Komeo, spoke with the program.
The number of food poisoning patients, which stood at 78 last week, has now surpassed 120.
Source: news.yahoo.co.jp / Original article here
What people said
If anyone really can't forgive him, they can just settle it in the ring at Breaking Down (a Japanese amateur fight event).
Komeo's doing his best.
That's not the point.
The people around him should've noticed too.
You still don't get it, huh.
This isn't just Komeo's problem.
He lost 50 to 2 — but he's easily surpassed his old master.
Even yakuza-run night-stall vendors probably have a higher standard of hygiene, lol
I used to work part-time at a tekiya festival stall (traditional street vendor), and we were super careful about food poisoning — always frozen or fully cooked.
Though, to be fair, what we were selling was basically garbage headed for the dump anyway.
One look at this guy's background makes it obvious he's not a food professional, and anyone who'd checked online would already know all about this shop.
It's like sticking your own face in a toilet and then complaining it's dirty — kind of absurd.
How's a one-year-old supposed to make that judgment call?
That's genuinely sad.
You're missing the whole point.
What are you gonna do about that?
Buy the soup and make it yourself.
Probably cash flow and promotion — basically "screw hygiene," and they fed people garbage as a result.
Messing around on your phone is just more fun, right?
They'd probably only ever dealt with legit, above-board places until now.
This is a Tokyo Metropolitan Government problem too. The hygiene safety net just isn't functioning, for some reason.
Different line of work, sure, but if he'd worked part-time at McDonald's, this wouldn't have happened.
Challenging the law just meant he'd been lucky that nothing had gone wrong until now.
someone with that low a level of awareness is going to repeat this even after taking a hygiene course.
Quite a few ramen shops don't wear gloves at all, honestly.
I'd wanted to try my hand overseas for a long time. But I have a past prison record, so I can't get financing for a new business. I'm still far too green as an entrepreneur, and I didn't even think I'd be able to make it abroad.
The reason I decided to take on this challenge anyway is because I want to change the way Japanese food has become "cheap." Japan's food culture deserves to be something we're prouder of.
When I gave a presentation at REAL VALUE, Mr. Mizoguchi told me, "To achieve your goals, you should borrow the strength of all kinds of people." Those words pushed me forward. Kunimitsu-san of the REAL VALUE mafia taught someone like me, who can't get a bank loan, about a mechanism called Financie, and so today I've decided to open the community.
This crab ramen isn't just a bowl of noodles — it's **a challenge to reclaim Japan's pride, powered by everyone's strength**.
Let's make this dream come true together.
Calling ramen "Japanese food" is where it already falls apart.
This happened even though it was made in the actual restaurant — and made at "Kappo Komeo" no less — but since it's "ramen," they only shut down the crab ramen shop, so this pathogen house is still open for business, same as ever.
The restaurant doesn't serve it chilled and it's cooked through, so even if the bacteria's there, it's probably dead.
He does at least hold a food hygiene management qualification, right? Surely?
Isn't it messed up that they're not revoking his qualification?
If you pay the fee and take the course, you get the "person in charge" certificate even if you sleep through the whole thing.
And on top of that, there's no renewal required.
There are plenty of ramen shops out there still displaying a grease-stained certificate from a course they took 30 years ago.
If there were renewal courses every five years or so, they'd cover the latest food poisoning cases, and it might actually shift people's awareness a bit.
Background and Key Points of This Story
In many Japanese municipalities, the “food hygiene supervisor” qualification requires only a single training session, with no mandatory renewal or retraining — and posters in the thread pointed to this regulatory laxity as part of the problem. Staphylococcus aureus is also naturally present on the skin and in the nasal passages of healthy people; when it enters food via a cut or wound, the toxin it produces while multiplying is what causes the food poisoning. That toxin is heat-resistant and doesn’t break down easily even with later cooking, so the simple assumption that “cooking it makes it safe” can be misleading — an easy point to overlook. While the thread is dominated by sympathy for, or criticism of, the owner personally, the actual regulatory violation — the missing hygiene records — and the operational issue of the affiliated restaurant staying open haven’t been examined in much depth. Preventing a repeat may call for scrutinizing the oversight system itself rather than just debating one person’s character.
*This article is compiled and summarized from a 5ch (Geinou/Sports News+) thread titled “Komeo’s shop’s chilled crab ramen causes food poisoning in 123 people — owner apologizes, sloppy management with no hygiene records, Staphylococcus aureus also found.”
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