Last month, Tsingtao Beer was embroiled in a controversy over urination, and recently in China, a needle was found in pork, sparking a food hygiene controversy again.
On the 25th, China’s Hongseong Newspaper reported that a thick iron core about 1.5 cm long was found in a student cafeteria meal tray at Jiao Tong University, a prestigious university in Shanghai, China.
As controversy arose after the report, the school said it had sought advice from experts regarding the incident. “The needle was for pig vaccines, not for humans or experiments,” he said. “When a newborn piglet was receiving an injection, it would struggle and the needle would fall out of the body.” “It appears to be broken,” he said.
The market management and oversight committee under the jurisdiction of this school has already begun an investigation into the circumstances of the incident.
The school, which was focused on providing an explanation without any apology, belatedly posted an apology on the 25th and deleted the existing explanation.
The school said, “Using this incident as an opportunity, we will work hard to track and manage food raw materials and quality control to prevent problems like this from occurring again.”
The company that supplied meals to the school closed, but the anxiety of students and parents increased.
In an interview with the media, an expert in the pork distribution business narrowed down the possibility of needles being found in pork to three major categories.
This expert explained that it broke when administering antibiotics or vaccines at a pig farm, or when water was injected into pork to increase capacity, or when a person added it maliciously.
A scene where a worker at Tsingtao Beer’s 3rd factory in Pingdu, Shandong Province, China, is believed to be urinating on raw materials. Weibo captureThis is not the first time such a food hygiene controversy has arisen in China. Last September, controversy arose at the Tsingtao Beer Factory in Qingdao, Shandong Province, China, when a worker was filmed urinating in a storage area for raw materials (malt).
The video was filmed at the third Tsingtao Beer factory in Qingdao, Shandong Province. A man believed to be a worker is filmed climbing over a wall as high as his shoulders and entering the raw material (malt) storage area to urinate.
Beer K, a domestic importer of Tsingtao beer, explained, “The factory in the video only produces beer for the Chinese domestic market and has nothing to do with imports.” However, as the hygiene controversy did not easily subside, sales of Qingdao at convenience stores and elsewhere decreased.
Due to this controversy, the company suffered losses of 6.7 billion yuan (about 1.2 trillion won) in market capitalization.
Choi Jae-ho,
Source: Donga
Mark Jones is a world traveler and journalist for News Rebeat. With a curious mind and a love of adventure, Mark brings a unique perspective to the latest global events and provides in-depth and thought-provoking coverage of the world at large.