It’s a whopper of a fine.
A Chinese Burger King operator will have to pay the equivalent of hundreds of thousands of dollars after a report on state-owned television revealed that one of its restaurants was purportedly using expired ingredients.
The Nanchang Market Supervision Bureau fined the six-restaurant operator the equivalent of $132,600, and confiscated another $407,000 in what it called “illegal income,” the Associated Press reported.
A Chinese Burger King operator will have to pay the equivalent of hundreds of thousands of dollars after state-owned television reported one of its restaurants had used expired ingredients. (AP Photo/Ng Han Guan, File)
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The fines were issued in the wake of a China Central Television report that claimed staff at a Nanchang Burger King had tampered with labels to keep ingredients longer than is permitted. The report prompted investigations at several Chinese Burger King restaurants, according to local media.
Burger King China apologized on Chinese social media platform Weibo after the report, and said it would cooperate with investigations into the franchisee’s restaurants. It said the location in the report had been temporarily closed for the investigation.
The statement drew more than 33,000 comments.
Burger King China apologized on the Chinese social media platform Weibo after the report and said it would cooperate with investigations into the franchisee’s restaurants. (AP Photo/Ng Han Guan)
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“We have disappointed the trust of consumers in Burger King,” the company said in its statement, according to the AP. “We express our deep apologies for this.”
The state-owned TV program that exposed the issue is a consumer protection show that has previously focused on other foreign brands, the AP reported.
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Food safety is a particularly touchy issue in China, according to the report. The country has had several scandals over dangerous food products in the past few years.
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