SHANGHAI, July 27 — OSI Group LLC, a meat supplier to McDonald’s Corp, said it would recall all products made by its Shanghai plant.
“To help rebuild the trust of our customers and consumers, as well as to cooperate with the official investigatory process, we are compelled to withdraw all products manufactured by Shanghai Husi from the marketplace,” Oak Brook, Illinois-based OSI said in a statement on its website.
Chinese authorities have shut down OSI’s Shanghai Husi Food Co plant for allegedly selling expired products. The city’s police have detained five people in connection with an investigation into the meat supplier, according to the Shanghai Municipal Food and Drug Administration.
OSI said it had brought a new management team into China to ensure operations were run “effectively”. The foodmaker is also conducting an internal investigation into current and former senior management, it said in the same statement.
Shanghai’s party secretary Han Zheng, the city’s most senior leader, said authorities would be candid to the public about the investigation into Shanghai Husi. All companies that flouted the rules in Shanghai would be punished according to law, according to comments distributed by the local government, citing Han’s words at a briefing.
Shanghai Husi changed production dates of some meat pies, the Shanghai Municipal Food and Drug Administration said. Almost 70 per cent of the re-packaged pies had been sold, with the rest confiscated by the agency, it said in a statement on its website.
OSI, which is based about 25 miles (40 kilometres) from McDonald’s headquarters in the Chicago suburbs, has previously apologised to its customers, calling the case an isolated incident. — Bloomberg
