China Probes a Sam’s Club Store Over Food-Safety Issues

The probe follows consumer complaints about spoiled beef, the regulator, a local branch of China’s top market watchdog, said.

After initial sample checks, the regulator found that the product didn’t meet standards and has ordered the store to recall all products from the same batch, it said.

The regulator said it also found improper practices at the store, including an imperfect system of rules and regulations, and overly high temperatures in its utility rooms.

Walmart didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment on Monday.

Walmart, the world’s largest retailer, has faced heightened scrutiny in China in recent weeks, after the passage of a U.S. law that bans virtually all imports from the northwestern Chinese region of Xinjiang over forced-labor and human-rights concerns.

In late December, the Bentonville, Ark.-based retailer attracted anger on Chinese social media after internet users accused Walmart of having stopped stocking products from Xinjiang, where the Chinese government has conducted a campaign of forcible assimilation against religious minorities. Shortly afterward, following local media reports that Walmart wasn’t selling products from Xinjiang, the company was warned by China’s anticorruption watchdog.

Last week, authorities and state media drew attention to a roughly $50,000 fine against Walmart in 2021, an unusual move by regulators to publicly highlight small fines for past infractions.

Walmart hasn’t publicly discussed the various actions by Chinese authorities.

Researchers say China’s government has detained hundreds of thousands of mostly Muslim minorities in a network of internment camps in Xinjiang as part of an assimilation campaign, which they say also includes mass surveillance and stringent birth controls.

U.S. officials, along with some lawmakers from other Western countries and some human-rights activists, have said Beijing’s treatment of mostly Muslim minorities in Xinjiang amounts to a form of genocide.

China’s government rejects the allegation. It has described the camps as vocational training facilities designed to improve livelihoods and combat religious extremism.

Write to Yifan Wang at [email protected]