Five held in China food scandal probe, including head of Shanghai Husi Food

By Brenda Goh and Paul Carsten SHANGHAI/LANGFANG China (Reuters) – Shanghai police said on Wednesday they detained five people in an investigation into a Chinese-based supplier of foreign fast-food brands including KFC and McDonald's Corp over allegations the firm supplied out-of-date meat. The five detained include the head of the company – Shanghai Husi Food Co Ltd, a unit of U.S.-based OSI Group LLC – and the firm's quality manager, the police said in an online statement. McDonald's, Yum Brands Inc, the parent company of KFC and Pizza Hut, and coffee chain Starbucks Corp are among global brands to have pulled products from their outlets after it emerged that Shanghai Husi supplied expired meat to clients in China, as well as Japan, in the latest in a series of food safety scandals in the country. Earlier, the official Xinhua news agency cited the Shanghai food and drug watchdog as saying that food safety violations at Shanghai Husi were company-led rather than the acts of individuals.