Food, Receipt and Restaurant

The pizza franchise sought to give the reassurance when the issue resurfaced recently.

Malaysian Mirror had received an email message last month claiming that Pizza Hut was practising discrimination.

Once again, the issue ...

The undated message essentially accused Pizza Hut of imposing the 5% government tax and 10% service charge based on race. It alleged that the Sunway outlet here was imposing the charges on non-Muslims while Muslim customers were exempted.

Pizza Hut said in a statement that it abided by all the laws of the country.

"It is mandatory by law to charge the 5% government tax while the 10% service charge is for table service applicable to all dine-in customers. These charges are pre-programmed into our cash registers."

It said the allegations could have stemmed from a misinterpretation of a three-month research study it undertook "years ago" to find out how customers from different races responded to its menus.

"The research has since been discontinued."

Checking it out

To allay any doubt, a MirrorXtra team, comprising a Malay and Chinese, went to the Sunway branch of the pizza chain. They sat at different  tables and made identical orders.

Both bills turned out to be the same at RM34.40, inclusive of service charge and government tax.

After paying for their food, they identified themselves to Pizza Hut assistant manager Norliza Hassan.

She said in the four years she had been stationed at the Sunway outlet, she had not come across complaints of discriminatory pricing.

“I’m aware of that e-mail that has been circulating for quite a while, but this is the first time someone is asking me about it.

No racist instructions from the top

“I can assure you that I had never been instructed nor have the management instructed the staff to charge different prices to different customers. All customers are treated the same.

“But we do have different receipts for  our management staff that waive the tax and service charge,” said Norliza, and volunteered to show the MirrorXtra team the receipt issued to a Pizza Hut training manager, who happened to be having lunch there at the time.

True enough, there were no service and tax charges, but the name and identity card number of the person was imprinted and the receipt also stated he was “management staff”.

A theory

Norliza suggested that what probably led to the email could be just a big misunderstanding as the email writer might not have realised the bill without the tax and service charges was for a staff member.

A similar experiment the MIrrorXtra team conducted at the Pizza Hut outlet at the Giant hypermarket complex in Kelana Jaya here a few days earlier also turned out nothing out of the ordinary.

Domestic Trade, Co-operative and Consumerism (Consumerism and Management) deputy secretary-general Mahani  Tan Abdullah told MirrorXtra that one of her officers who had worked in Pizza Hut before said no such discrimination exists in the quick service restaurant.

“Every customer pays the service charge and government tax.”

Show proof

However, Mahani said if anyone believes a restaurant is conducting unfair business practices, he or she should file an official complaint with her ministry, with receipts  as proof.

“If not, I can safely say that this smells like a case of business rivalry, which Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC)  was a target of over its halal certification some time ago."

Pizza Hut and KFC are operated by QSR Brands Sdn Bhd, which also runs the Rasamas chain of restaurants and Ayamas outlets.

“Every year, such hoaxes will pop up and we (the ministry) have to run around to clear the names of the businesses,” said Mahani.