Japanese restaurants will now source chicken from Thailand, while Hong Kong outlets have taken chicken products off menu

This article is more than 6 years old

This article is more than 6 years old

McDonald's Japan has said it will stop importing chicken from China and its restaurants will stop selling the meat, following a food safety scandal in which expired meat was sold to fast food outlets.

The hamburger chain said it would start sourcing all its chicken from Thailand in order to address the concerns of its customers.

"We made this decision in view of the growing concern over McDonald's chicken products made in China," the Japanese unit's chief executive, Sarah Casanova, said.

McDonald's 3,000 restaurants across Japan serve eight dishes using chicken sourced from China, including Chicken McNuggets and Chicken Fillet-O.

Hong Kong's McDonald's restaurants have also taken chicken nuggets and chicken burgers off the menu after a mainland Chinese supplier was accused of selling expired meat.

McDonald's said on Thursday that it had "suspended relevant food ingredients" at Hong Kong outlets in light of the scandal surrounding the Shanghai-based supplier Husi Food.

Chinese authorities detained five Husi employees after a TV station reported last weekend that the company had repackaged and sold meat past its use-by date.

McDonald's in Hong Kong said it used chicken from a Husi factory but it was not the Shanghai factory at the centre of the initial allegations against the company.

The government of the semiautonomous Chinese territory said that imports of Husi products would be suspended as the investigation continued.