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U.S. Food Firm Sorry Over China ‘Bad Meat’ Scandal

U.S. Food Firm Sorry Over China ‘Bad Meat’ Scandal

Shanghai (AFP) — The U.S. food supplier at the center of an expired meat scandal in China has apologized, as KFC and Pizza Hut’s parent company said it would stop using the firm’s products in the key Chinese market.

Shanghai authorities at the weekend shut a plant owned by privately-held OSI Group for mixing out-of-date meat with fresh product, and on Wednesday detained five officials from the OSI subsidiary which operated it.

Chinese state media have taken aim at foreign companies, sparking calls for stronger regulation in a country which has seen repeated problems with food and product safety.

Sheldon Lavin, chairman and chief executive officer of OSI, said he had no defense for the case, according to a statement on the company’s China website dated Thursday.

“What happened at Husi Shanghai is completely unacceptable,” Lavin said, referring to China unit Shanghai Husi Food Co.

“It was terribly wrong and I am appalled that it ever happened in the company that I own,” he said, adding authorities have inspected the company’s other facilities in China and had not found any issues.

Besides Shanghai, OSI has eight other production facilities in China, according to its website.

The Shanghai factory’s customers in China included McDonald’s, KFC, Pizza Hut, coffee chain Starbucks, Burger King, 7-Eleven convenience stores, and Papa John’s Pizza, according to the companies.

U.S. burger chain Carl’s Jr. also used its products, Chinese media said Thursday.

In Japan, McDonald’s and convenience store chain Family Mart sold chicken from the Shanghai factory, but have stopped.

Yum Brands, which operates more than 4,600 KFC restaurants and 1,100 Pizza Hut branches in China, said it will stop using products from all of OSI’s factories in the country and threatened legal action. OSI has supplied Yum in China since 2008.

“Yum China will look at the final results of the government inspection and reserves the right to take legal action against OSI Group,” it said in a statement posted on its official China microblog late Wednesday.

Yum has sought to reassure Chinese consumers over food safety after an earlier scare over avian influenza and a 2012 controversy over excessive levels of antibiotics found in its chicken.

Separately, McDonald’s said it would no longer “cooperate” with OSI’s Shanghai factory, but would instead use products from the company’s other plants in Hebei and Henan provinces, according to a statement.

AFP Photo / Johannes Eisele

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China Shuts Meat Producer Supplying McDonald’s, KFC

China Shuts Meat Producer Supplying McDonald’s, KFC

Shanghai (AFP) — Shanghai has shut a factory of U.S. food producer OSI Group for selling out-of-date meat to restaurant giants including McDonald’s and KFC, authorities said Monday, in China’s latest food safety scandal.

A Shanghai television channel, which reported the original allegations, said that workers at the plant mixed expired meat with the fresh product and deliberately misled quality inspectors from McDonald’s.

City officials closed the Shanghai Husi Food Co. factory on Sunday and seized products which allegedly used the expired meat, the Shanghai food and drug administration said in a statement.

Police were investigating, it said, threatening “severe punishment” in future.

Television footage showed workers in white suits picking up meat and hamburger patties from the floor before putting them back into processing machinery, and one employee handling out-of-date beef and calling it “stinky meat”.

McDonald’s said in a statement it had “immediately” stopped using the factory’s products while restaurant operator Yum separately said its KFC and Pizza Hut establishments had also halted use of its meat.

KFC has faced food safety issues in China before, when authorities found excessive levels of antibiotics in chicken it sourced from local suppliers in 2012.

OSI Group apologised to its customers and said it was “appalled” by the report on its factory, adding that it was “dealing with the issue directly and quickly” in a statement posted on its Chinese website.

“The company has formed an investigation team, is fully cooperating with inspections being conducted by relevant, supervising government agencies, and is also conducting its own internal review,” the statement added.

Other customers of Husi Food included Burger King, Papa John’s Pizza, and coffee chain Starbucks, the Shanghai Daily newspaper reported Monday.

Furniture maker Ikea, which had been named by Chinese media as serving the factory’s meat at in-store restaurants, said it stopped using the company’s products last year, and sandwich maker Subway also denied it uses meat from the firm.

China has been rocked by a series of food and product safety problems, due to lax enforcement of regulations and corner-cutting by producers.

One of the worst occurred in 2008 when the industrial chemical melamine was found to have been illegally added to dairy products, killing at least six babies and making 300,000 people ill.

U.S. retail giant Walmart said early this year that it would tighten inspections of its suppliers in China after it was forced to recall donkey meat products that had been found to contain fox.

Last year, China detained hundreds of people for food safety crimes, including selling rat and fox meat disguised as beef and mutton, following a three-month crackdown, police said.

AFP Photo / Peter Parks

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