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Asian restaurants’ suffer from food truck incident
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Guosheng Dong and Chen Jiang are the owners of China Star, 3415 Canfield Road. The Chinese restaurant’s business is suffering from recent coverage of a food-delivery truck that had spoiled food and which made stops at some Mahoning Valley restaurants. China Star was not on the delivery list.
YOUNGSTOWN
Multiple news accounts of food trucks delivering spoiled goods to Asian restaurants are keeping customers away — even from Valley eateries not involved, some workers say.
There were 21 Asian restaurants in Mahoning County that were on a list provided by the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture on Aug. 27.
Some of those restaurants either accepted or rejected the food delivered to them.
Some Asian restaurants that were not on the delivery list, however, consider themselves collateral damage.
“It’s just killing us,” said Dennis Sinkovich, a delivery driver for China Star, 3415 Canfield Road.
“It’s a shame that we got lumped in with everyone else,” Sinkovich said, speaking on behalf of the owner, Chen “Ivy” Jiang.
On a normal Friday night, the restaurant usually receives 50 to 70 orders. That number has gone down recently.
Sinkovich said the restaurant business helps Ivy support her family, including her three kids.
“I feel really bad for this family; they’re one of the ones doing the right thing,” Sinkovich said.
The delivery truck was owned by NYWP Enterprise LLC from McKees Rocks, Pa.
The Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency called the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture shortly after 7 p.m. Aug. 27 to report the truck had been stopped on U.S. Route 422, just south of state Route 551.
A state sanitarian inspected the truck’s pork, fish, chicken, noodles and canned goods and found the pork at 64 degrees and fish at 54 degrees.
The state requires that food that needs refrigeration be kept at or below 45 degrees.
The delivery truck was headed back to its headquarters in Pennsylvania with rejected products and had turned off its refrigeration to save on fuel, according to a statement from NYWP Enterprise. The company rejected the notion that it would deliver spoiled products to clients.
Sanitarians from Mahoning County and the city of Youngstown were sent out Aug. 28 to inspect the 21 restaurants that were on the delivery list.
Those sanitarians decided whether the accepted food was safe or needed to be disposed of.
This was the third incident in a year in which spoiled Asian food was discovered on the way to or from the Valley.
In August 2013, a Cincinnati-based truck with spoiled meat and vegetables was headed for at least nine restaurants in the Youngstown area and western Pennsylvania.
In May, a Cleveland-based truck was pulled over after delivering to seven Asian restaurants in the Valley.
The string of high-profile incidents has affected Asian restaurants’ business, said Mike Bao, son of the owners of Fortune Garden, 4245 Belmont Ave.
Fortune Garden was among the Asian restaurants involved with the 2013 spoiled-food incident, and the restaurant’s business immediately declined by 40 percent.
Though the restaurant now purchases most of its food from Gordon Food Service, or GFS, a full-line food distributor based in Grand Rapids, Mich., recovery has been difficult, Bao said.
China Star now purchases food from Canal Fulton Provisions, Canal Fulton, and Sky Eggroll Mix LLC, Cincinnati, without any problems.
Sinkovich said Jiang keeps the restaurant clean and inspects the food upon its arrival at the restaurant.
“I believe her food is top-notch,” he said. “It’s heart- breaking to see them go down this path.”