O what a fascinating story - enough to get me blogging through my lunchbreak to share it with you, dear readers!
The local sections of Gazeta Wyborcza and Rzeczpospolita have both followed up on yesterday's scoop about the underground kebab meat factory located under Warsaw's central station.
Journalists followed voivodship sanitary-epidemiological inspectors and policemen under the platforms of Dworzec Centralny yesterday. Prior to this visit, PKP's spokeman assured journalists that all illegal meat processing has stopped and that the case is now closed. It turned out otherwise - although the main warehouse had been shut down, the inspectors found a Vietnamese man preparing vegetables and, in another room, some processing of meat was going on, with 10kg of meat lying around waiting to be turned into kebabs. The guy with the meat was landed with a 500 zł fine ('for sanitary shortcomings'), although the inspectors could not find anything unhygienic about the Vietnamese vegetables. (This bears out my experience of eating VietPol food - I've never had food-poisoning from it in 13 years.) The meat operation seems to have been dramatically scaled down - inspectors found invoices lying around suggesting that this one had been processing up to 200kg (a fifth of a ton) of meat a day.
The dodgy kebab meat from here sold for 9zł (2 quid) a kilo compared to 15zł (3 quid) for the legitimate stuff.
Yesterday's report that the main kebab meat processing plant had been run by a Turk drew criticism from Turkish kebab vendors. "The operations under the Central Station were run by citizens of Egypt and former Yugoslavia," a Turkish owner of a kebab meat producer told Rzeczpospolita.
One consequence of this affair is that there will not be any food preparation allowed in the refurbished Central Station - only prepared food such as sandwiches and cakes will be sold.
My photos of the lower depths of Warszawa Centralna here.
"only prepared food such as sandwiches and cakes will be sold." Again, the selling out of Poland to the godless europeans and their pre-packaged sandwiches. I shed a tear for Bosfor, Pharoah or any of the other hot food options!
ReplyDeleteIf the place was producing mutton for kebabs, this was an appalling attack on free enterprise and discerning consumer choice. If it was that disgusting chicken/cat/dog stuff, well done the sanitary inspectors.
ReplyDeleteHowever, from a previous post, I am slightly mystified about the reference to Turks. Aren't they all Vietnamese?
Steve
It is not true that the ban on food processing in the Centralny is a consequence of the discovery you describe. It is an element of the initial plan of the PKP PLK.
ReplyDeleteThe thought of ANY food being prepared within 10km of dworzec centralny makes me want to vomit!
ReplyDelete@ Anon - you may be right. The whole thing might be a ruse by PKP PLK to ensure that coffee and cake are the only aromas allowed in the place.
ReplyDelete@ Scatts - same goes for underground passage under the Rotunda - that stench of burnt casseine from those toasted sandwich bars. RETCH!