The market supervisory administration said in a statement over the
weekend it was investigating Shanghai Eurest Food Technologies
Service Co Ltd's operating qualifications and food safety controls
at the Shanghai SMIC Private School.
Food and drug safety incidents can have an outsized impact in China
where regulators and consumers are hyper-sensitive to safety and
quality, especially related to children, following a spate of issues
ranging from expired vaccines to reused meat.
The case was as high as number 12 on the most-read topics on China's
Twitter-like social media platform Weibo on Monday.
"If the school and the contractor are found to have been violating
the law, then they will be swiftly and severely investigated
according to the law," the market regulator said.
Britain-based Compass is the world's biggest catering firm with 22.6
billion pounds ($29.56 billion) in revenue last year. Eurest is one
of its main brands along with Chartwells, ESS and Flik.
The SMIC school, which has nearly 3,000 students, said in a
statement that during an inspection by parents on Friday, they had
found "certain expired or stale food, with suspicious date of
manufacturing labeled on certain food items inside the kitchen of
the school cafeteria."
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The school apologized and said it would suspend one staff member and
reprimand others. It has set up a task force to respond to the issue
and had temporarily ceased its food supply deal with Shanghai Eurest.
"The school will strengthen its oversight of the food supplier and
enhance the implementation of a more stringent food quality control
process," it said.
A person who answered the phone at Compass Group in Shanghai said
she could not comment because an investigation was ongoing. Reuters
could not immediately reach Shanghai Eurest, a wholly owned
subsidiary of Compass, for comment.
(Reporting by Shanghai newsroom and Adam Jourdan; Editing by
Christopher Cushing)
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