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Ed Lam, a sales manager at Wellington Poultry, said it would be impossible for an individual to purchase boxes of chicken from him because they only sell to large-scale wholesalers in the Toronto area — and Wellington transports the poultry in bulk in refrigerated vans.

“It’s not our driver, I have no idea who that person is,” said Lam. “We deal with the wholesalers, and this guy is just a driver and he picks ups products from everywhere, I suppose.”

Lam says the bulk of the chicken they sell end up in Asian markets.

“We are fully licensed, we have inspectors on site all day, so our product is safe. It’s just that when people don’t handle it properly, that’s the danger in this. We have a refrigerated truck and we ship it to wholesalers. We drop it off at their warehouse. It gets from our place to Point B it’s safe and everything is good. And this person probably got it from Point C, D, who knows.”‘

One of the wholesalers on Lam’s list is Smithville Meat Wholesaler in Mississauga. The company’s manager Connie Pang says, like Lam, the meat they sell only leaves their warehouse in refrigerated company vans.

“We have our own refrigerated transportation to deliver to our clients, and that has been the law for over 10 years. When we deliver to the clients — whether a restaurant or supermarket — they have to be (in) refrigerated transportation.”

After the news broke that an Ottawa store was expected to receive the spoiled chicken, the public expressed concern through comments and emails, wanting to know where the meat was headed.