A Chinese restaurant in central China was forced to apologize to the public for encouraging diners to weigh themselves and then order food accordingly.
The policy was introduced by the restaurant’s management after a national campaign against food waste was introduced in the Asian country.
The beef restaurant in the city of Changsha erected two large scales at its entrance this week for customers to weigh themselves in before entering.
The management then asked diners o enter their measurements into an app that would then suggest menu items according to their weight.
Signs reading “be thrifty and diligent, promote empty plates” and “operation empty plate” were pinned up at the restaurant.
The restaurant’s policy, however, caused an uproar on the Chinese social network.
Hashtags about the restaurant in question have been viewed by more than 300 million times on the social platform Weibo.
In response to the criticism, the restaurant said it was “deeply sorry” for its interpretation of the national “Clean Plate Campaign”.
“Our original intentions were to advocate for stopping waste and healthily ordering food. We never forced customers to weigh themselves,” it said in an apology posted online as reported by an international media.
President Xi Jinping ignited the campaign this week, calling the levels of national food wastage “shocking and distressing”.
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Following Mr. Xi’s message, the Wuhan Catering Industry Association urged restaurants in the city to limit the number of dishes served to diners – implementing a system where groups have to order one dish fewer than the number of diners.
State TV also criticized live streamers who filmed themselves eating large amounts of food.
