Fishmonger fined £13,000 for employee tossing frozen seafood onto road
A fishmonger has been fined after a worker was filmed hurling frozen seafood onto the pavement outside a shop in East London.
The employee was recorded repeatedly flinging blocks of frozen fish onto the dirty pavement behind Moon Fish at Barking Market.
The footage, which went viral on social media last October, showed the worker attempting to break up the frozen fish.
In the video, a man can be heard saying, ‘Look at that. Moon Fish – that is what he does with your meat. Breaks it up on the floor.
‘That’s going in your bellies, ladies and gentlemen.’
A fishmonger has been fined after a worker was filmed hurling frozen seafood onto the pavement outside a shop in East London . The employee was recorded repeatedly flinging blocks of frozen fish onto the dirty pavement behind Moon Fish at Barking Market
The footage, which went viral on social media last October, showed the worker attempting to break up the frozen fish. In the video, a man can be heard saying, ‘Look at that. Moon Fish – that is what he does with your meat. Breaks it up on the floor. ‘That’s going in your bellies, ladies and gentlemen’
This month, the company and its director were fined thousands of pounds after pleading guilty to food hygiene offenses.
Moon Fish received a £10,500 fine and was ordered to pay an additional £2,500 in costs.
Its director, Nadeem Hashmat, 50, was fined £1,536 with costs of £871.19.
Barking and Dagenham Council, which prosecuted the case, said the video had ‘sparked outrage and concern amongst the public’ and led to their food safety team being ‘inundated with complaints.’
Inspections by environmental health teams revealed numerous safety breaches at Moon Fish.
The shop was not clean or well-maintained, and there was no food safety management system in place.
Inspectors found dirty floors and freezers, spilled food on shelves, and unsanitary toilets.
Food handlers lacked supervision and necessary food hygiene training.
The council said: ‘At the time of the visit, raw food, such as fish, was stored above or next to open cooked or ready-to-eat foods, thus not protecting the food from contamination.’
Councillor Syed Ghani, the council’s cabinet member for enforcement and community safety, added: ‘Why anyone would think this behaviour was OK is beyond me – the video was shocking.
‘I’m glad our Food Safety Team reacted quickly and continued with the prosecution. It’s a great result.
‘I hope the owners of this business have learned a valuable lesson regarding food safety and won’t allow anything like this to happen again.’
The video, posted on YouTube, TikTok, and X (formerly Twitter), horrified social media users.
One commented: ‘Why not just run it under a tap and soak it? Vile. It makes you not want to buy anything.’
Another asked: ‘Did he think no one was going to see him dashing fish on the curb?’
Some users joked about the incident, with one saying: ‘Doesn’t look like a place you should be buying fish from.’
Others made puns, such as ‘This is barking mad,’ and ‘When I said I want it battered I didn’t mean like that.’
In response to the video, Barking council reported that Moon Fish claimed the worker was a trainee on his first day and had been ‘removed from the shop.’
Moon Fish has a food hygiene rating of one out of five, with its food safety management described as needing ‘major improvement.’
