Arrest for 2 suspects in expired meat case
Print Edition
THE two owners of a company accused of selling old beef and pork to supermarkets and a food website have been arrested, prosecutors in Shanghai’s Minhang District announced yesterday.
The pair, surnamed Wang and Cai, were seized with 25 tons of unsold and expired meat during a crackdown by police and food safety authorities in July, they said.
They have been charged with producing and selling counterfeit products and offering bribes.
Prosecutors said the pair began stocking expired meat in 2012. It came from Australia, with no production date or place, or from dealers in China’s Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region and Henan and Hebei provinces.
The meat was sold to supermarkets, vendors in shopping malls and an online food website, prosecutors said, but they declined to give further details.
Expired beef was mixed with fresh in high-end packaging and expired meat was also used to make street snacks such as Taiwan-style sausages, it is claimed.
A worker at the company said Wang used meat that had turned green to make sausages. Wang told her the meat was OK and asked her to wash the green off, prosecutors said.
Tests on meat seized by the authorities revealed it failed to pass quality tests and also smelled bad.
Prosecutors said the pair imported the expired meat at 5 to 10 yuan (US$1.63) per kilogram. Fresh beef is usually sold at 70 yuan per kilogram but it was not revealed how much the company charged.
Between January and July, Wang and Cai are said to have bribed the people in charge of purchasing at supermarkets to put their products on the shelf by offering commission of up to 3 percent of the selling price.
The maximum penalty for producing and selling counterfeit products is life in prison.
In a recent food scandal in the city, six high-ranking officials with meat supplier Shanghai Husi Food were arrested on August 29 after the company was accused of selling expired beef and chicken to McDonald’s, KFC and other major restaurant chains
No trial date has been set.
Shanghai Husi’s parent company, OSI Group of Aurora, Illinois, laid off 340 of the 500-strong workforce.
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