Sam's Club store in Yizhuang area of Beijing Photo: Li Hao/GT

A Walmart-owned Sam's Club store in Beijing was fined 50,000 yuan ($7,896) for selling undeclared cheese products by local law enforcement authorities, corporate portal Tianyancha showed on Monday. This marks at least the third penalty handed to the US supermarket brand reported by the media in less than a month.

A Sam's member store in Yizhuang, Beijing, is suspected of violating Chinese food safety laws for producing and retailing potentially contaminated food, after a cheese product sold in the store was found to contain unidentified black objects within its inner packaging.

According to the law, the responsible party subject to a penalty from 50,000 to 65,000 yuan if the illegal act lasts less than one month and the product's value is less than 3,000 yuan.

On January 14, Walmart China was been fined 300,000 yuan for using default five-star ratings for products on the Sam's Club app. The Guangdong Administration for Market Regulation (GAMR) deemed that such false commercial publicity would deceive and mislead consumers.

On January 4, it was reported that the market regulator for Qingpu district in Shanghai had fined Sam's Club Shanghai 10,000 yuan ($1,573.5) for producing, selling food and food additives with non-compliant labeling and introductory information, according to online enterprise platform Tianyancha.

Sam's Club found itself in hot water since it was exposed to have removed many products from Northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region in December. The anger it sparked among Chinese consumers led to significant cancellations of Sam's Club memberships across the country.