Over the weekend, fast food companies in China have come under attack after an undercover report by the media revealed that the companies could be serving expired meats — some that may have been expired for over a year!
Shanghai's Dragon TV reported that a major meat supplier for fast food brands such as KFC, McDonald's and Pizza Hut in China had been passing expired meat for safe meat. YUCK!
In their undercover report, Dragon TV's reporter took a job at Shanghai's Husi Food Co. There he discovered many unsanitary practices. Chicken meat products that touched the floor were returned to the conveyor belt and made into nuggets. Expired steaks were broken down with (probably expired) burger patties to create new burger patties. All of which is utterly disgusting.
Chinese food safety regulations forbid the use of "recycled" material to make new products. Husi was effectively using unsold beef patties and mixing it with expired beef to create new beef patties. Husi was also recorded using defective materials to create new products. According to Dragon TV's report, it was common practice for Husi to use defective McNuggets to create new McNuggets by throwing the defective ones into a new batter and mix.
The reporters' most egregious finding came during a survey by one of Husi's clients. According to the reporter, a McDonalds had come with a delegation to conduct a checkup on meat production. When they did, Husi had hidden all the boxes of old, outdated and expired meats from sight. The company passed the inspection. According to the reporter, Husi was informed by someone from McDonalds of the impending survey.
After the report aired, McDonalds and Yum! Brands (the parent company of KFC and Pizza Hut) immediately halted business with Husi. McDonalds even posted on it's official Weibo microblog that some restaurants would see shortages of menu items due to the stoppage.
As of this morning, this reporter was unable to purchase a McDonald's Big Breakfast meal. McDonald's China customer service informed me via telephone at 7:30 that they did not have meat patties available for that meal.
Food safety has always been a major concern in China. In the past Yum! Brands was hit with a food scandal involving the chicken being served in it's KFC restaurants. The chicken was found to have extremely high levels of antibiotics. There's also the major melamine milk scandal in 2008 that killed at least 6 infants in China.
McDonald's, Yum Halt Buying From Chinese Meat Supplier [Bloomberg]
麦当劳肯德基供应商黑幕：发臭小牛排过期一年 [Dragon TV via Tencent]
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Eric is a Beijing based writer and all around FAT man. You can contact him @FatAsianTechie@gmail.com or follow him on Twitter @FatAsianTechie