McDonald's and KFC in China faced a new food safety scare Monday after a meat company has been accused of selling out-of-date and tainted meat to the popular franchises.
The companies said they immediately stopped using meat from the supplier, Husi Food Co., Ltd. The Shanghai office of China's food and drug agency said it was investigating and told customers to suspend use of the supplier's products.
In response, the Chinese units of McDonald's and KFC said in news releases posted from their official Sina Weibo social-messaging accounts that they had halted use of all products from Shanghai Husi, which is owned by the OSI Group, based in Aurora, Ill.
The Shanghai office of the State Food and Drug Administration said it was working with police to investigate Husi.
"At present, the company has been sealed and suspect products seized," the agency said on its website.
McDonald's sealed 4,500 cases of beef, pork, chicken and other products supplied by Husi for investigation and Pizza Hut sealed 500 cases of seasoned beef, the city government said in a statement.
Yang Liqun, a general manager at OSI China, told the state news agency Xinhua that the company had a strict quality-control system and would cooperate in the investigation.
Food safety has been a sensitive topic among Chinese people in recent years, and nationwide scandals have broken out after revelations about the contamination of products like infant formula and cooking oil.
