Shanghai meat factory ordered to close

The Shanghai Food and Drug Administration last night ordered a food processing plant in Jiading District — a supplier to fast food giants like McDonald's and KFC — to suspend production following allegations it used out-of-date and substandard meat.

Officials from the agency raided the Husi Food factory about 9pm, shortly after the broadcast of a Shanghai Television evening newscast.

In the program, an undercover reporter posing as a worker at Husi — the Chinese arm of United States-based OSI Group — used a hidden camera to film his colleagues mixing "expired" meat with fresh cuts and lying to inspectors from fast food chain McDonald's.

Husi supplies various meat products to several global brands, including McDonald's, KFC, Burger King, Pizza Hut, Papa Johns, Starbucks and Subway.

In the program, a worker openly admitted to mixing chicken skin with chicken breast meat, while in another scene, employees were filmed putting out-of-date chicken breasts back into refrigerators for later use. According to one worker, the company openly promotes the practice of combining substandard chicken meat with fresh cuts prior to frying.

"There is even a manual outlining the mix ratios," he said.

In another scene, workers are filmed combining unidentified meats in a large blender, before forming them into patties and storing them in a freezer.

In one of the most damning scenes, said to have been shot on May 21, a group of people — who identified themselves as McDonald's quality inspectors — is seen visiting the factory. As they toured the factory floor, bags of substandard products were shifted out of view.

"If our suppliers (McDonald's) found out that we use the expired meat, we'd lose our contract with them," an unwitting worker told the undercover reporter.