cold chain Photo:VCG

All staff members at Anhui provincial branch of agribusiness company Cargill and the collected environment samples there, were tested negative after one of the company's locally-produced chicken legs tested positive on Tuesday, the company told the Global Times on Thursday. 

Cargil is an important supplier of chicken products to large fast food chain including the KFC and McDonald's in China, and its Anhui plant located in east China is supplying restaurants in the Yangtze River delta, according to media reports. 

A representative from McDonald's told the Global Times that the Anhui plant of Cargil "did not produce any products relatig McDonald's" on the day the positive chicken legs were produced, and so far the company's supply line has not been affected. 

The representative also said that chances are high that the lone infection comes from logistic chain. 

On Tuesday, the outer packaging of a batch of domestically-produced chicken drumsticks showed positive nucleic acid test results, according to Lai'an county in Chuzhou of East China's Anhui Province, where the company is based. The incident marks the first time that COVID-19 was reported on local cold chains in China.

The case was detected in Wuxi city, East China's Jiangsu Province, where the products was tested positive. The results were later reported to Chuzhou's epidemic control task force.

On Tuesday, Wuxi's epidemic control team announced that a batch of frozen pigs' ears from the US-based Premium Iowa Pork tested positive for coronavirus. The products have not entered the market yet.