HONG KONG
A customer is seen through the windows of a McDonald’s store in Hong Kong July 25, 2014.
Credit: Reuters/Tyrone Siu
(Reuters) – McDonald’s Corp has suspended sales of chicken nuggets and other items in Hong Kong after it said it had imported products from Shanghai Husi Food, the U.S.-owned company at the center of a food safety scare in China.
McDonald’s said in a statement late on Thursday it had imported certain products from Shanghai Husi between July last year to June this year, although no food items from the Shanghai supplier remained in stock.
The fast-food company said it had also stopped selling its McSpicy chicken filets, chicken and green salads, fresh corn cups and iced lemon tea. McDonald’s said it had stopped using the following ingredients from another branch, Guangzhou Husi: lettuce, corn kernels, lemon slices, green salad, cucumber, onion and tomato.
“We reiterate that until today, all the food sold at McDonald’s restaurants conform to the food safety standard under Hong Kong legal regulations,” McDonald’s said.
The announcement came after Hong Kong said it had suspended, with immediate effect, all imports from Shanghai Husi Food, which is owned by Illinois-based OSI Group.
The food scandal broke after a TV report on Sunday showed staff at Shanghai Husi Food using long expired meat and picking up food from the floor to add back to the mix.
Hong Kong’s Centre for Food Safety said in a statement late on Thursday that any food products from Husi already imported into the city would be marked, sealed and banned from sale, pending the results of investigations by Chinese authorities.
China is McDonald’s third-biggest market as measured by the number of restaurants.
The latest food safety scare in China has also ensnared KFC parent Yum Brands Inc, which has required all of its KFC and Pizza Hut restaurants to seal up and stop using all meat materials supplied by the Husi factory.
McDonald’s said earlier this week the company sourced about a fifth of its Chicken McNuggets in Japan from Shanghai Husi and had halted sales of the product on Monday.
Food safety is one of the top issues for Chinese consumers after a scandal in 2008 where dairy products tainted with the industrial chemical melamine led to the deaths of six infants and made many thousands sick.
(Reporting by Anne Marie Roantree and Donny Kwok; Editing by Dean Yates)