A rotten meat scandal which led several fast food chains to withdraw some of their most popular dishes in China this week spread to Japan Tuesday, as McDonald's announced it had stopped selling fried chicken.
The scam has already affected fast food chains McDonald's, KFC, Pizza Hut, Starbucks, Burger King and Dicos in China, all of which bought meat supplies from the Shanghai Husi company which was closed down by Chinese authorities for allegedly selling expired meat.
McDonald's Holding Japan said in a statement Tuesday it had stopped serving chicken McNuggets "after confirming the complaint" which Chinese television channel Dragon TV aired last weekend, Efe news agency reported.
The Shanghai TV revealed Sunday that the Husi firm, which supplies meat to several fast food companies, had consistently falsified expiration dates.
Among other irregularities, the channel released footage filmed at the Husi factory in Shanghai showing how chicken discarded after routine checks by authorities were repeatedly reprocessed to pass quality controls.
The report, made with a hidden camera and undercover journalists, also showed employees picking up meat from the floor and throwing it into the grinder to make hamburgers.
A Husi director told the journalists that top company executives had allowed personnel to use expired meat to make hamburgers.
McDonald's Japan Tuesday said it had "cancelled" its purchase agreement with Husi and had already found alternative purveyors in China and Thailand, but did not specify when it would resume its chicken sales.
Shares of the company, which recently had gone through operational difficulties, touched its lowest level in a year and a half and lost 0.35 percent at the closing session of the Tokyo Stock Exchange.
Earlier, the US coffee chain Starbucks, Burger King, McDonald's, Pizza Hut, KFC and Dicos in China had withdrawn products that contained meat supplied by Husi.
In a statement posted on its official Weibo account - a Chinese social networking site - Starbucks announced Tuesday that it had decided to withdraw one of its products, the chicken panini with apple sauce, which contained meat from a supplier who used products of Shanghai Husi.
Starbucks's sandwich was being sold in 13 Chinese provinces and in the major cities of the country.
Apart from Starbucks, Burger King has also posted the withdrawal of its products containing meat sourced from Husi on its Weibo account, adding that it has begun an inquiry into the matter.
Dicos, a Chinese chain owned by Taiwan's Ting Hsin International Group, made similar statements on the popular Chinese social networking site, while Ikea confirmed that it had stopped dealing with Husi in September last year.
Husi is the Chinese subsidiary of the OSI Group, a food processing company with its main US headquarters in Aurora, Illinois, that has issued a statement apologising for "the problems caused or if any consumer has been affected".
Meanwhile, authorities in China have rushed to seal up suspicious meat products in fast food chains, including McDonald's and KFC.
The move came in response to the media and public outcry over selling adulterated products with rotten meat and meat beyond its expiration date, Xinhua reported.
The expose prompted Shanghai authorities to suspend production at Shanghai Husi Sunday, while cities and provinces across China Monday moved to seal Husi supplies at local fast food chains.
The food and drug administration of Chengdu, capital of Sichuan Province, sealed 9.6 tonnes of Husi products at warehouses and outlets of McDonald's, KFC and Dicos.
Hangzhou, capital of Zhejiang Province, also sealed 1.77 tonnes of beef steaks and over six tonnes of chicken and pork products at KFC and Pizza Hut, both under Yum Brands, as well as McDonald's.
Officials in the two cities said the chains had voluntarily stopped selling the affected products and sealed their Husi supplies after the scandal broke out.
Other provincial-level regions, including Guangdong, Guangxi and Inner Mongolia, have also reported sealing the products and ordered companies to stop selling products supplied by Husi, te Xinhua reported said.
McDonald's said some of its restaurants might face a supply shortage in a statement released Monday.
China Food and Drug Administration Monday ordered local authorities to investigate all food factories with investment from OSI Group in the provinces of Hebei, Shandong, Henan, Guangdong and Yunnan.
This is the latest case regarding food insecurity in China, one of the most serious problems affecting the country, where irregularities of this kind are on the rise leading to growing public concern.
