Employees at China's restaurant chain Xibei have confirmed that the company has given an average salary increase of 500 yuan (RMB, equivalent to 91.52 SGD) to all staff.
On Saturday (November 22), Modern Express quoted the store manager of Xibei’s Nanjing Sandzhichuan location saying that Xibei has recently adjusted and lowered the prices of its products at its locations in China, with nearly 40 dishes seeing price reductions of between 5% and 20%. The report also quoted a service staff member confirming that earlier reports about the average 500 yuan salary increase for all Xibei employees were accurate.
According to Xinhuanghe, Xibei held a staff meeting on September 12, at which founder Jia Guolong announced a 500 yuan subsidy for frontline employees; this subsidy was distributed in September and, from October onwards, was integrated as a fixed component of the frontline employees' regular income as part of their bonuses.
The Xibei PR department said that the 500 yuan monthly payment issued from September is not a consolation award, “but rather a universal salary raise.”
Popular entrepreneur Luo Yonghao, after dining at Xibei in September, posted on Weibo criticizing the restaurant for “serving only pre-prepared dishes at high prices,” sparking a debate between both parties and igniting a nationwide discussion on pre-prepared foods, consumer right to know, and corporate public relations.
Subsequently, several media outlets investigated Xibei’s kitchens and revealed that the restaurant uses a variety of frozen and pre-cooked dishes; for example, the raw materials for the signature scallion roast fish at the restaurant are marinated frozen fish with a shelf life of 18 months, and the sauce for oat noodles is also frozen beef sauce.
Xibei later suspended kitchen tours for customers and issued an open letter of apology, acknowledging the significant gap between its production processes and customer expectations, and promising to shift as much of the central kitchen’s pre-processing to in-store preparation as possible. By October, eight dishes including beef cakes and grilled lamb skewers would progressively be adjusted to be freshly made in the store.
Reports stated that following the above controversy, Jia Guolong issued a clear internal directive: “No staff schedule reductions, no layoffs allowed. When there are no customers in the store, store managers are to lead staff in study and training.”