Govt probes Yum! Brands facility

The Shanghai Food and Drug Administration launched an investigation Tuesday into a logistics center operated by Yum! Brands after State television news reported that it sourced chicken products from problematic farms and processing companies in Shandong Province for its KFC and Pizza Hut restaurants.

The administration dispatched officials to the logistics center immediately after CCTV aired the report, according to a post on the administration's microblog.

Inspectors ran random checks on the food at the center. They also sought to confirm the source of the food and how the company had checked on its own suppliers.

The administration vowed to punish the company to the fullest extent of the law if it discovered food safety violations, according to the post.

CCTV reported that one of Yum! Brands' major suppliers of chicken, the Shandong-based Liuhe Group, forged reports to show regulators that it had ran mandatory testing for diseases on the poultry it bought from farms in the province.

The expose also showed that the farms force-fed chickens large volumes of antibiotics and antiviral drugs to prevent them from getting sick.

KFC responded on its official microblog Tuesday afternoon that it hadn't purchased chicken from Liuhe Group since August.

The company stated that it annually audits its suppliers' records on the drugs they give poultry.

According to regulations from the Ministry of Agriculture, farmers must stop feeding drugs to poultry seven days before they are scheduled to be butchered.

However, the CCTV report showed evidence that at least some farms in the province continued to feed drugs to chickens two days before they were sent off for processing.