Scandal-battered Shuanghui to clean up tainted meat

Xinhua, July 24, 2011

Henan Shuanghui Investment and Development Co., Ltd., the listed arm of China's largest meat processor Shuanghui Group, announced that it would clean up nearly 3,800 tonnes of clenbuterol-tainted meat in a bid to ease consumers' concern.

The tainted meat, 3,768 tonnes in total, include factory stocks and those returned from the market in the group's subsidiary in Jiyuan City, the company said in a statement filed with the Shenzhen Stock Exchange on Friday.

The statement said this would incur 62 million yuan (about 9.6 million U.S. dollars) of losses to the Jiyuan company.

In March this year, the China Central Television reported that the Jiyuan subsidiary had used pork tainted with the fat-burning drug clenbuterol in its products.

Clenbuterol is a chemical that can be fed to pigs to make them produce lean meat. The chemical is poisonous to humans and is banned as an additive in stock feed in China.

Shares of the Shenzhen-listed company once stopped trading for more than one month following disclosure of the scandal.