A takeaway restaurant and its director have been ordered to pay thousands of pounds after admitting a series of serious food safety offences.
SAI20 Limited, trading as Abi Fast Food, a restaurant selling Sri Lankan cuisine and other takeaway items at 233 The Broadway, Southall; and its director, Velventhan Ganesalingham; pleaded guilty to 6 offences each. It followed an investigation by Ealing Council’s food safety team.
The case was heard at Uxbridge Magistrates’ Court on 8 July. The court heard that council officers found repeated food hygiene failings during a number of visits to the business in 2025.
Repeated failures
The investigation began after a routine food hygiene inspection in January 2025. Officers found high-risk foods like meat curries being kept at unsafe temperatures, problems with cross contamination between different foods, poor cleaning standards in the food preparation area, a lack of staff training on food hygiene, and no properly working food safety management system. The council served the business with ‘improvement notices’ which legally required the business to put things right.
When officers returned for a follow-up inspection in March 2025, they found the notices had not been met. Staff were unable to answer basic food safety questions and records designed to help keep food safe were blank or incomplete. Officers also found ongoing hygiene and contamination risks in food preparation areas.
A further inspection in May 2025 then found more serious problems. About 20kg of high-risk food, including curries, rice, and meat dishes, was voluntarily surrendered by staff after officers found it had been stored at room temperature and not properly refrigerated. Officers also found poor cleaning standards throughout the premises and ongoing structural defects that made effective cleaning difficult.
The court heard that a toilet still opened directly into a food preparation room, despite previous advice from officers to change that. Food handlers also showed poor knowledge of food hygiene requirements.
Court penalties
At the court hearing this month, the company admitted to a variety of offences including failing to comply with 2 Hygiene Improvement Notices, failing to keep premises clean and in good repair, failing to make sure staff were properly trained, allowing a toilet to open directly into a food preparation area, and failing to keep high-risk food at safe temperatures.
The court fined SAI20 Limited £2,000 and ordered it to pay £4,000 in costs and an £800 victim surcharge, bringing its total bill to £6,800.
Mr Ganesalingham was fined £600 and ordered to pay £1,180.70 in costs and a £240 victim surcharge.
Protecting public health
Councillor Kamaljit Nagpal, the council’s cabinet member for decent living incomes, said: “Food businesses have a legal duty to ensure the food they sell is safe for their customers.
In this case, officers found serious and repeated failures, despite giving advice and serving formal notices requiring improvements.
“Our food safety team works hard to protect residents and visitors. The council will continue to take action against businesses that put public health at risk by failing to meet basic food hygiene standards.”
