Six Pizza Hut restaurants in Beijing's Haidian District have been asked to halt takeout order services by the district's market regulator due to food safety and other issues, according to a notice released by the regulator on Wednesday. 

Among the six restaurants, two had unclean kitchen environment issues, and one was suspected of using food ingredients past their expiration dates. Other issues included a lack of labels to distinguish between food containers and trash containers.

Haidian's market regulator conducted a comprehensive round of food safety inspection from July 10 to 27. Besides the six Pizza Hut restaurants, 12 other restaurants were notified that they had food safety or management loophole issues. 

The pizza chain has been operating in the Chinese market for over 30 years, and has opened over 2,700 stores across the nation. According to its Chinese website, it has over 200 stores in Beijing. 

The chain is operated by Yum China Holdings, which is listed in New York. According to the company's second quarter financial report in 2022, Pizza Hut sales decreased by 14 percent year-on-year. 

Yum China opened 121 new Pizza Hut restaurants across China in the first half of the year, per the financial report.