Just weeks after Chinese authorities cleared Yum Brands Inc and
McDonald's Corp of charges they had served chicken laced with excessive
chemicals, local media are again attacking the iconic American firms,
while barely reporting on the chances of Chinese restaurants selling
similar meat.
The official “Shanghai Daily”, citing a
report from the central government's news portal china.com.cn, said on
Thursday one of China's largest suppliers to McDonald's and Yum's KFC
and had bought sick chicken from farms and sold them to the food outlets
– a claim a local government in the central province of Henan said was
untrue after a preliminary investigation.
Chinese
newspapers and websites have also criticized some domestic firms, but
industry experts say multinationals are hotter targets given the high
profile of their brands.
"KFC and McDonald's get media
attention because they're the biggest fast-food chains in China.
Everyone knows them and everyone talks about them," said Tan Xiaoxue, a
reporter at Sohu.com Inc's news portal.
"There are some
local chains such as Country Style Cooking, but they cannot be compared
with international brands, which have much bigger brand recognition and
consumer impact."
In the latest chicken scare case,
china.com.cn quoted an unidentified official at Doyoo Group – which
sells chicken to KFC and McDonald's – plus employees at Doyoo's
suppliers as saying chicken that fell ill were slaughtered and shipped
to fast food restaurants including the two American giants.
However, the government of Doyoo's home city Hebi said on Wednesday
that it had found no evidence of this in a preliminary probe, and
authorities were looking into the case more closely.
In response to the china.com.cn report, Yum's China unit said it will closely monitor the situation.
"If Doyoo is found to have committed any wrongdoings, it will be
subject to severe punishment," it said via its official microblog
account.
Officials at McDonald's in China and at Doyoo could not be reached for comment despite repeated calls by Reuters.
Scathing editorial
Last week, Yum warned that sales in China - where it earns over half of
its worldwide revenue and operating profit – shrank more than expected
in the fourth quarter, citing bad publicity from a government review of
its chicken supply.
The firm has been embroiled over
the past month in a scare triggered by an official China Central
Television report which said some chicken supplied to KFC and McDonald's
contained excess amounts of antiviral drugs and growth hormones.
On investigation, the Shanghai Food and Drug Administration found the
levels of antibiotics and steroids in KFC chicken were safe, though the
watchdog found a suspicious level of an anti-viral drug in one of the
eight samples tested.
Yum apologized last week to
customers over the handling of that scare, but state-run Xinhua news
agency immediately weighed in with an editorial on Saturday slamming the
U.S. firm.
"Yum's understated apology is rooted in its
arrogance and propensity for unfairly treating Chinese consumers, who
usually regard foreign brands as being safer and of higher quality than
domestic brands," Xinhua said.
"Other multinational
companies have displayed the same attitude, capitalizing on loopholes in
Chinese law and regulations to escape punishment."
Kevin Der Arslanian, a business analyst at China Market Research Group
in Shanghai, said the government is taking a firm stance against foreign
companies especially in the food sector given high public concerns over
safety.
"They are being harsh on them to show that they are aware of these worries when it comes to food safety," he said.
"I don't think it's unfair that they're specifically targeting foreign
brands. These foreign brands and KFC in particular have positioned
themselves as extremely healthful and extremely high quality, and
therefore if there are scandals it is only fair that they be hit the
hardest."
Still, not all local news outlets are joining the attack.
Chen Xiaoxiang, a reporter at Hangzhou city newspaper “Metropolis
Express” said his editors chose not to cover the KFC stories because
safety violations are a bigger problem for domestic companies.
"We believe that these international companies are already operating in
a relatively well regulated way, and compared with many small Chinese
workshop-style food chains, they are more trustworthy," he said.
"Their problems are often minor compared with quality problems at many
local companies. . .Media focus, rather, should be on those
ill-regulated Chinese companies." – Reuters
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