Chinese firm's staff forced to eat worms as punishment for poor sales

Employees from a Chinese decorating company were forced to eat live earthworms after they failed to reach their sales target.

The video, filmed in the city of Bijie in Guizhou Province, shows several workers being forced to swallow the live earthworms.

A man was heard asking: "It has parasites, has it?" A woman replies: "Of course it has."

According to reports, the company used to punish its employees by forcing them to do squats or eat raw eggs - but now they were ordered to eat earthworms and loaches.

'We have both rewards and punishment'

Although the company allowed the employees to pay 500 yuan (£56) and buy breakfast for all workers to avoid eating the earthworms, most people thought the cost was too high and chose to eat the earthworms.

The manager named Leng said: "We have both rewards and punishment. You cannot just take the rewards but do not accept the punishment, right? No one was unhappy with our reward and penalty system when we set it up."

The employee who published the video was reportedly threatened by their company and has already called the police.