New Pizza Hut management not related to MPI inquiries

New managers have been appointed to Dunedin Pizza Hut stores, but they retain the same franchise owner.

The company says the change is unrelated to a recent Ministry for Primary Industries investigation into the stores because of alleged hygiene issues.

The Dunedin stores have stated ''under new management!'' at the bottom of recent advertisements.

When asked about the changes a Pizza Hut spokesman said Naveen Malhotra remained the franchise owner of both stores.

New managers from other New Zealand Pizza Huts were now managing the stores day to day.

Before the changes Mr Malhotra was the manager of the North Dunedin store.

The spokesman said the company wanted ''people to know there were new faces leading our team behind the counter''.

The new management at the store was unrelated to a Ministry for Primary Industries investigation, the spokesman said.

He also said it was a ''routine visit'' of the ministry to its North Dunedin store.

However, the visit was triggered after the ministry was notified in February of hygiene complaints at the stores by former employees.

It investigated and identified some concerns with hygiene and food practices that needed action.

It did not find evidence of more serious allegations of altering date marks and was satisfied appropriate steps were taken by the company to improve hygiene and practices at both stores.

The Otago Daily Times asked the Advertising Standards Authority whether ''under new management!'' implied a new franchise owner.

Authority chief executive Hilary Souter said it did not comment on specific cases in case they received complaints about those advertisements.

jono.edwards@odt.co.nz

Comments

I'm still dubious. We haven't been back to Pizza Hut since that worker spilled the beans, because it's more believable than the PR statements managers/owners etc would put out. The franchise owner should have lost the franchise rights...

So for now, we'll still keep sticking with Dominoes and Hell.

A-ba-ba-ba-ba...

 

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