McDonald's Japan withdraws chicken products of Chinese origin

Tokyo, July 25 (IANS/EFE) The Japanese subsidiary of McDonald's Friday announced the withdrawal of all its chicken products sourced from China, following the expired meat scandal that led to the closure of Chinese meat processing firm Husi.

Japan McDonald's, one of the two Japanese companies affected by the case, will replace poultry products of Chinese origin with others from Thailand in order to regain consumer confidence, said its president Sarah Casanova in a statement.

This contrasts with the announcement Friday by the Chinese subsidiary of the American multinational, which said it will stop buying meat from the Husi plant in Shanghai, where the meat products were allegedly processed under bad conditions, but not from the firm's plant in Henan.

A dozen multinational fast food franchises like McDonalds, KFC, Pizza Hut, Starbucks, Burger King, Papa Johns, 7-Eleven and Chinese Dicos, as well as McDonalds subsidiaries in Japan and Hong Kong have been affected by the scandal and have pulled off all Husi beef products from their shelves.

In Japan, the 24-hour supermarket chain FamilyMart this week cancelled its chicken imports from the Chinese company.

Initial investigations by Shanghai authorities indicated that Husi systematically sold expired meat products following the discovery of more than 5,000 boxes of meat past the expiry date in their facilities.

An undercover operation conducted by the Shanghai Dragon TV with a hidden camera and journalists showed how Husi staff consciously used expired chicken to reprocess different products and how they evaded health checks.

--IANS/EFE

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