China charges 10 with repackaging, selling old meat
BEIJING — Shanghai prosecutors say they are charging people connected to a US meat supplier’s Chinese subsidiary with producing and selling fake and substandard products.
Shanghai Husi Food Co., which is a unit of OSI Group of Aurora, Illinois, has been under investigation since a Shanghai TV station reported last year that it repackaged and sold old meat. The scandal alarmed Chinese diners and disrupted operations for fast food brands.
The Shanghai prosecutor’s office said in a statement that prosecutors from Shanghai’s Jiading district brought the cases against 10 defendants, including some connected to Husi’s facilities in Shanghai and Hebei province.
OSI said in a statement that it would address the charges “according to legal procedures.”
“We have confidence in China’s legal system and believe that the judicial authority will come to a fair and reasonable judgment with full respect to the facts and laws,” OSI said.
Product safety is unusually sensitive in China following scandals over the past decade in which infants, hospital patients and others have been killed or sickened by phony or adulterated milk powder, drugs and other goods.
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