Over 30 pct. of home-delivery sushi contains too much bacteria: Consumer assoc.

A "scarily high" 31 percent of sushi meals that are delivered to customers' homes contain too much bacteria, according to consumers association Consumentenbond. This is caused by poor hygiene in the preparation of the meals, the association concludes after testing 160 sushi samples from 20 restaurants in five cities, NU.nl reports.

Poor hygiene standards include using dirty cutting boards and employees not washing their hands before working with the food. In many cases the delivered sushi was fresh, the Consumentenbond added.

The Consumentenbond tested sushi deliveries from restaurants in Groningen, Leiden, Rotterdam, Breda and Amersfoort. The test involved four restaurant chains, each with two branches in the five cities. Researchers ordered eight kinds of sushi from each restaurant, spread over several days. The restaurant with the best score (9.6) and the one with the worst (2.5) are both located in Leiden.

In 2015 the Consumentenbond examined the sushi served in all-you-can-eat specials and found that 64 percent of that sushi contained too much bacteria. The same types of sushi were tested in both studies.