A popular Chinese restaurant in the Black Country has admitted selling food unfit for consumption after more than 40 people were poisoned by a salmonella outbreak.

Bosses at Wing Wah in Oldbury will be sentenced at crown court after admitting four charges relating to food hygiene when they appeared before Wolverhampton Magistrates Court yesterday.

District judge Michael Wheeler labelled the case “as serious as it can get” after hearing how 46 people aged from 22 months to 81-years-old, fell ill while six were hospitalised.

Kwai Lun Chiu from the restaurant pleaded guilty to three contraventions of the food hygiene act as well as a charge of having food unfit for consumption between August 15 and 26, 2008.

Roy Lipman also pleaded guilty to the same four charges on behalf of Wing Wah’s parent company Western Star (Midlands) Ltd.

The Causeway Green Road branch was closed temporarily from August 29 to September 1 in 2008 after complaints of food poisoning.

Mr Lipman, speaking on behalf of the company, said although the council had claimed 46 people were affected their insurance company had only received 17 complaints.