Starbucks opens its first Greener Store outside of North America in Shanghai Photo: Chen Xia/GT

Starbucks was fined around 1.36 million yuan ($210,000) by local market regulator in the eastern Chinese city of Wuxi, Jiangsu Province, after two of its outlets in the city were found to have adjusted ingredient shelf life and used expired ingredients. 

The Wuxi Market Supervision Administration handed out a 690,000 yuan fine to one store, while another store was fined 670,000 yuan. The penalty statement was released on the website of the National Enterprise Credit Information Publicity System (Jiangsu) on Tuesday. 

"According to the surveillance video in the store, workers tampered, replaced and destroyed shelf life labels for food ingredients, and continued to use expired ingredients," read the statement. 

The investigations conducted by the local market regulator in the two stores came after The Beijing News reported, following an undercover investigation, how the stores had violated food safety rules and that the US coffee giant had not met food safety standards. 

The Beijing News report angered Chinese customers at the end of last year. 

Starbucks in December 2021 admitted workers' operation violations and apologized, saying it would carry out a review across all its outlets in China.

Another US firm, Airbnb, was fined 400,000 yuan by the Beijing market regulator late January, as the company failed to define the rules for the marketing price of rooms in a promotional campaign. 

Global Times