China meat scandal hits Starbucks, Burger King
Source: AP-Excite
By JOE McDONALD
BEIJING (AP) A suspect meat scandal in China engulfed Starbucks and Burger King on Tuesday and spread to Japan where McDonald's said the Chinese supplier accused of selling expired beef and chicken had provided 20 percent of the meat in its chicken nuggets.
Chinese authorities expanded their investigation of the meat supplier, Shanghai company Husi Food Co. A day after Husi's food processing plant in Shanghai was sealed by the China Food and Drug Administration, the agency said Tuesday that inspectors also will look at its facilities and meat sources in five provinces in central, eastern and southern China.
The scandal surrounding Husi Food, which is owned by OSI Group of Aurora, Illinois, has added to a string of safety scares in China over milk, medicines and other goods that have left the public wary of dairies, restaurants and other suppliers.
Food safety violations will be "severely punished," the food agency said on its website.
FULL story at link.
Customers have a meal at a McDonald's restaurant in Tokyo, Tuesday, July 22, 2014. McDonald{2019}s Corp. said Tuesday its restaurants in Japan stopped using chicken from the Shanghai company, Husi Food Co. McDonald{2019}s said Husi provided about 20 percent of the meat of expired chicken used in its chicken nuggets in Japan. (AP Photo/Shizuo Kambayashi)
Read more: http://apnews.excite.com/article/20140722/as-china-suspect-meat-6b459ef1e8.html
Couldn't they find a reporter with a name other than McDONALD since the scandal hit McDonald's the day before?
bulloney
(4,113 posts)Sure they will. The reason we see reports of tainted foods, defective products and corrupt financial markets daily is because these corporations get a finger wagging and they're allowed to continue their practices. Penalties are so minor, these companies are not deterred from repeating these violations and consider the penalties part of their cost of doing business.
BumRushDaShow
(127,312 posts)Historic NY
(37,449 posts)process'. These international mega-conglomerates don't seem to work out, considering this isn't the first time for Husi. They (OSI) apparently haven't learned.
Dr Hobbitstein
(6,568 posts)This is happening in China and Japan.
TiredOfNo
(52 posts)It's an AMERICAN company that's ONLY poisoning Japanese and Chinese people. So that's alright.........
Dr Hobbitstein
(6,568 posts)And it's not an American company doing the "poisoning", it's the supplier, which is Chinese.
You said something about letting foreign companies into our food chain, I was simply disputing that. It's not in OUR food chain.
That does not mean that it doesn't matter that it doesn't affect Americans.
arikara
(5,562 posts)...The scandal surrounding Husi Food, which is owned by OSI Group of Aurora, Illinois...,
An American company, based in China, poisoning Japanese people.
Dr Hobbitstein
(6,568 posts)I guess I missed that. It was McDonald's that I was referring to, however..
Regardless, I am not defending ANY company in this... All I stated was that it did not affect the American food chain like the previous poster implied.
I'm not a fan of globalism, nor offshoring. I know that we've had issues in the past with exporting our beef to Japan, so I can see why they would want to use a different supplier. Not sure why China would be ok, however. Their track record re: food exports are worse than ours.
tblue37
(64,982 posts)The Huffington Post | By Rachel Tepper
Where do chicken nuggets come from? The answer may not be straightforward following the Department of Agriculture's announcement on Friday that it has approved four Chinese poultry processors to begin shipping meat to the U.S.
According to The New York Times, the poultry that processors are allowed to ship will initially be restricted to cooked meat from birds raised in the U.S. But critics worry that the rules will change in the future, opening the door for poultry raised and slaughtered in China -- a country notorious for its food safety problems -- to be shipped to the U.S.
Among those critics is Tony Corbo, a senior lobbyist for the advocacy group Food and Water Watch. This is the first step towards allowing China to export its own domestic chickens to the U.S., he told the Times.
Corbo has reason to be concerned; in the last months alone, Chinese police discovered an illegal food smuggling plot to sell 46-year-old chicken feet treated with bleach, a criminal ring accused of selling rat and fox meat as lamb and abnormally high levels of cadmium, a metal that can cause cancer and other illnesses, in rice sold in Guangzhou restaurants.
<SNIP>
MADem
(135,425 posts)the reporter Ma-coo-don-a-do! (That's pretty much how you say McDonald's in Japanese!)
I don't like that Chinese chicken--I'd rather look for something approximating a union label.
djean111
(14,255 posts)Looks like the TPP will prohibit anything that would give consumers enough info about a product in order to make an informed decision on whether to buy it.
http://www.exposethetpp.org/TPPImpacts_FoodSafety.html
Under the TPP, food labels could also be challenged as "trade barriers." The TPP would impose limits on labels providing information on where a food product comes from. The TPP also would endanger labels identifying genetically modified foods and labels identifying how food was produced. TPP would expand the limits on consumer labels already included in existing "trade" agreements, like the World Trade Organization (WTO). But already under the WTO, the U.S. dolphin-safe tuna fish label and our country-of-origin meat and poultry labels have been successfully attacked by other countries. And, under TPP, a foreign meat processing or food corporation operating within the United States could directly challenge our policies that they claim undermine their expected future profits - meaning a barrage of new attacks.
So good luck looking for a union label - but do look closely at which politicians are pushing the TPP.
Divernan
(15,480 posts)OSI Group issued a statement Monday saying it has launched its own investigation into a report on Chinas Dragon TV that workers at its factory in Shanghai were caught on camera reprocessing expired and discarded meat, including picking up meat off of the floor and mixing fresh meat with meat older than the expiration date.
McDonalds Corp. and Yum Brands KFC and Pizza Hut restaurants said they switched to other suppliers and noted that the unit of OSI Group served restaurants only in the Shanghai area. McDonalds, headquartered in Oak Brook, said the incident affected 25 percent of its restaurants in China.
The OSI Group started as Otto & Sons, eventually becoming in the 1970s the largest Midwest supplier of hamburgers to McDonalds, according to an October 2013 report in Independent Processor magazine. The OSI Group website said the company has been supplying McDonalds in China since 1992 and KFC and Yum Brands since 2008.OSI
The company expanded under the leadership of billionaire Sheldon Lavin, who transformed Otto & Sons into OSI Group, with 20,000 employees worldwide, $6.125 billion in 2013 revenue and more than 50 facilities in 17 countries, according to the magazine and an analysis by PrivCo business research.
7962
(11,841 posts)I know these suppliers are supplying stores overseas, but if they can save a buck getting it for stores here, they'd do it.
I dont trust the Chinese to supply us ANYTHING. Look at the BPA problem, the pet food scandal, etc. They dont care and have no standards.
bearssoapbox
(1,408 posts)I haven't eaten anything from MickyD's, KFC or Taco Bell for years.
There is a chicken place in town and I know the owner and that he gets his meat and most of his supplies locally so I trust him.
Here's some more info about China processing salmon and chicken and how it's cheaper to let China do it.
http://bearssoapbox.over-blog.com/article-mcdonald-s-and-kfc-in-china-food-scare-after-supplier-falsified-expiry-dates-on-rotten-meat-124203596.html
Not providing link to steer anybody there. Just a bit more info.
dixiegrrrrl
(60,010 posts)Smithfield is the brand of low cost and sub par meat already.
bacon, for instance, has more fat than any other brand I have found.
The company owns 12 brands of foods, Armour being the most recognizable, I think.
China bought the company not long ago.
DeSwiss
(27,137 posts)K&R
Snarkoleptic
(5,995 posts)To ease concerns, lobbyists and chicken industry proponents argue no U.S. company will ever ship chicken to China for processing because it wouldnt work economically.
Economically, it doesnt make much sense, said Tom Super, spokesman for the National Chicken Council, in a recent interview with the Houston Chronicle. Think about it: A Chinese company would have to purchase frozen chicken in the U.S., pay to ship it 7,000 miles, unload it, transport it to a processing plant, unpack it, cut it up, process/cook it, freeze it, repack it, transport it back to a port, then ship it another 7,000 miles. I dont know how anyone could make a profit doing that.
Yet, a similar process is already being used for U.S. seafood.
Omaha Steve
(99,073 posts)http://www.agweek.com/event/article/id/23710/
Published July 21, 2014, 10:15 AM
By: Jerry Hagstrom, Agweek
A coalition of consumer groups has asked the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Office of Management and Budget to release the latest version of a rule to change poultry inspection and open a new comment period.
Unconfirmed reports have circulated that USDA pulled back on a proposal to increase the speed at which chickens whizz past inspectors after a meeting with the National Council of La Raza, which speaks for the Hispanic workers employed in the plants.
The rule, promulgated by USDAs Food Safety and Inspection Service, would shift some poultry inspection responsibilities from federally employed inspectors to employees of the poultry companies, theoretically freeing the federal employees to perform other tasks. The original version of the rule also shifted the allowed line speeds from 140 birds per minute to 175 birds per minute.
Members of the Safe Food Coalition that signed the letter urging that the rule be made public and open to comment include: Center for Foodborne Illness Research & Prevention, Center for Science in the Public Interest, Consumer Federation of America, Consumers Union, Food & Water Watch, Government Accountability Project, National Consumers League, and STOP Foodborne Illness.
- See more at: http://www.agweek.com/event/article/id/23710/#sthash.7g05cPrO.dpuf
FULL story at link.
TiredOfNo
(52 posts)Yavin4
(35,357 posts)TiredOfNo
(52 posts)L0oniX
(31,493 posts)TiredOfNo
(52 posts)You may still be eating cow and chicken shit but at least all the germs will be dead................
randome
(34,845 posts)Maybe he raised his hand and shouted, "Oh! Oh! Let me have that one!"
[hr][font color="blue"][center]I'm always right. When I'm wrong I admit it.
So then I'm right about being wrong.[/center][/font][hr]
miyazaki
(2,220 posts)RebelOne
(30,947 posts)It was an eye-opener about how much cow feces was going into the meats. That's why I am thankful that I am a vegetarian.
lunasun
(21,646 posts)The scandal surrounding Husi Food, which is owned by OSI Group of Aurora, Illinois, has added to a string of safety scares in China over milk, medicines and other goods that have left the public wary of dairies, restaurants and other suppliers.
Although Husi foods do not come here, we have enough crap food here already that is retrieved raw from floor shops etc.
geek tragedy
(68,868 posts)lunasun
(21,646 posts)Chicken ham turkey
http://www.starbucks.com/menu/catalog/nutrition?food=all#food=all&page=2