Yum knew in 2010 chicken tainted
By Xu Chi |
December 21, 2012, Friday
|
Print Edition
Print Edition
Back in 2010, Yum Brands Inc, the world's largest restaurant company and owner of KFC, found excessive antibiotics in chicken from a supplier but didn't report it and kept on buying the tainted chicken, Shanghai's food safety office said yesterday.
The company and the Shanghai Institute for Food and Drug Control, a government institute paid by the company to test its chicken products, will receive the "strictest punishment" if they are found to have broken food safety laws, the food safety office said yesterday in an investigation report on the "instant chicken."
Yum Brands Inc signed a contract with SIFDC in August 2005 to serve as a third-party inspection body to test the quality of raw produce from suppliers.
The company sent samples to the institute every two months and paid several million yuan a year for the service, Shanghai Television reported. The food safety office report said that from 2010 to 2011, a total of eight out of 19 batches of chicken the company purchased from the Shandong Liuhe Group were found to have excessive levels of antibiotics.
Liuhe had bought the problem products from several farms where chickens were fed chemicals laced with illegal medicine and 18 kinds of antibiotics to keep them alive and boost their growth, China Central Television reported earlier.
Reports showing that the chicken that contained excessive antibiotics were sent to the company by the institute, but neither the company nor the institute reported the problem to the city government, food safety officials said.
Instead, Yum Brands kept buying chicken products from Liuhe until August this year, the report said. The company said they stopped buying not because of food safety problems but due to "adjustment of strategic layout," according to STV.
"The company should have taken action as soon as it found problems in its raw materials. It should have reported to the city government, tightened management of its supplier or just stopped purchasing products from it," said Gu Zhenhua, deputy director with the food safety office.
The office said it was inspecting 32 samples from eight kinds of poultry products from Yum Brands' Shanghai logistics center.
Yum Brands told STV that it was still investigating the situation.
While the eventual destination of the eight batches of problem chicken found in 2010 and 2011 is still being investigated, STV said they might have been sold to KFC customers in Shanghai.
KFC told STV they had found unqualified products from the supplier in 2010 and they had been returned or sealed up to be destroyed. It said it stopped purchasing from Liuhe in 2011.
However, an STV investigation found KFC was still buying chicken from the company on May 3 this year - more than 30,000 kilograms of chicken wings in 1,000 boxes, according to its purchasing reports. It was not known whether the chicken wings were sold to customers or sealed, STV reported.
On Wednesday, food safety authorities in Qingdao City closed farms where chickens were said to have been fed illegal drugs and antibiotics.
Two slaughterhouses of the Shandong Liuhe Group and Yingtai Co were also ordered to halt production.
The company and the Shanghai Institute for Food and Drug Control, a government institute paid by the company to test its chicken products, will receive the "strictest punishment" if they are found to have broken food safety laws, the food safety office said yesterday in an investigation report on the "instant chicken."
Yum Brands Inc signed a contract with SIFDC in August 2005 to serve as a third-party inspection body to test the quality of raw produce from suppliers.
The company sent samples to the institute every two months and paid several million yuan a year for the service, Shanghai Television reported. The food safety office report said that from 2010 to 2011, a total of eight out of 19 batches of chicken the company purchased from the Shandong Liuhe Group were found to have excessive levels of antibiotics.
Liuhe had bought the problem products from several farms where chickens were fed chemicals laced with illegal medicine and 18 kinds of antibiotics to keep them alive and boost their growth, China Central Television reported earlier.
Reports showing that the chicken that contained excessive antibiotics were sent to the company by the institute, but neither the company nor the institute reported the problem to the city government, food safety officials said.
Instead, Yum Brands kept buying chicken products from Liuhe until August this year, the report said. The company said they stopped buying not because of food safety problems but due to "adjustment of strategic layout," according to STV.
"The company should have taken action as soon as it found problems in its raw materials. It should have reported to the city government, tightened management of its supplier or just stopped purchasing products from it," said Gu Zhenhua, deputy director with the food safety office.
The office said it was inspecting 32 samples from eight kinds of poultry products from Yum Brands' Shanghai logistics center.
Yum Brands told STV that it was still investigating the situation.
While the eventual destination of the eight batches of problem chicken found in 2010 and 2011 is still being investigated, STV said they might have been sold to KFC customers in Shanghai.
KFC told STV they had found unqualified products from the supplier in 2010 and they had been returned or sealed up to be destroyed. It said it stopped purchasing from Liuhe in 2011.
However, an STV investigation found KFC was still buying chicken from the company on May 3 this year - more than 30,000 kilograms of chicken wings in 1,000 boxes, according to its purchasing reports. It was not known whether the chicken wings were sold to customers or sealed, STV reported.
On Wednesday, food safety authorities in Qingdao City closed farms where chickens were said to have been fed illegal drugs and antibiotics.
Two slaughterhouses of the Shandong Liuhe Group and Yingtai Co were also ordered to halt production.
- About Us
- |
- Terms of Use
- |
-
RSS - |
- Privacy Policy
- |
- Contact Us
- |
- Shanghai Call Center: 962288
- |
- Tip-off hotline: 52920043
- 沪ICP证：沪ICP备05050403号-1
- |
- 互联网新闻信息服务许可证：31120180004
- |
- 网络视听许可证：0909346
- |
- 广播电视节目制作许可证：沪字第354号
- |
- 增值电信业务经营许可证：沪B2-20120012
Copyright © 1999- Shanghai Daily. All rights reserved.Preferably viewed with Internet Explorer 8 or newer browsers.
