Bad Apple: Sha Tin residents boycott local Park N Shop over rotten produce, terrible service

Perhaps with all the political drama lately, Hong Kong citizens have had their sense of civic duty awakened in the face of injustice. Take the residents of the City One residential complex in Sha Tin, who organised a one-day boycott against their local ParkNShop after becoming fed up with the grocery store’s alleged poor service and lack of fresh produce.

Customers interviewed by Apple Daily said that the store is understaffed, forcing patrons to queue up to 40 minutes at a time just to check out. One elderly woman said that the fruit was often so rotten that they’d be “oozing juice”, and that the staff would yell at everybody, even “old things” like her, if they tried to pick through the fruit and veggies.  Apparently the store often had expired milk on their shelves, while others complained about the store’s messy cargo unloading area, which was visible to the public.

A rep for the rival supermarket, Fortune City One Market, said they did not notice a change in the number of patrons they saw the day of the boycott. One ParkNShop patron said he’d noticed a 90 percent drop in the number of customers frequenting the grocery store.  

Apple Daily said in response to the boycott and the resulting bad press, the ParkNShop staff members were on edge the day of the protest. Staff members quickly removed any signs of bad produce. Cashier attendants were not allowed to leave even if there were no queues at their register, and managers patrolled the produce aisles nervously to check if any reporters were taking photographic evidence of bad fruit. 



Reader Interactions

Leave A Reply


BECOME A COCO+ MEMBER

Support local news and join a community of like-minded
“Coconauts” across Southeast Asia and Hong Kong.

Join Now
Coconuts TV
Our latest and greatest original videos
Subscribe on