PepsiCo Beijing suspends operation following Covid-19 cases
Following confirmation of eight COVID-19 cases in food factory, PepsiCo Beijing’s chips branch has suspended its operations with an advisory to all staff to self isolate thereby triggering nationwide concerns over the safety of PepsiCo products with experts warning the public over novel coronavirus contamination.
Report said two of the eight patients had made purchases at the Xinfadi Market, where the latest outbreak in the city emerged.
The company, which produces mainly Lay’s chips, was reported to have immediately suspended production on confirmation on June 15, that a PepsiCo staff was infected to avoid contamination and further spread. PepsiCo also sealed off stocks and outbound transportation was prohibited, Fan Zhimin, from the publicity department of PepsiCo in China, was quoted as saying at the Beijing government’s anti-epidemic press conference on Sunday, assuring the company would follow the rules to ensure food safety.
However, no case of Coronavirus was found in PepsiCo beverage factories across the country, including its Beijing branch.
Beyond the branch in southern Beijing’s Daxing district, PepsiCo has chips companies in Wuhan, Central China’s Hubei Province and Shanghai in the Chinese mainland.
Expectedly panic reactions trailed the release of the information by Beijing municipal government and PepsiCo as Chinese consumers besieged online platforms to express their concerns over PepsiCo products, mostly Pepsi-Cola and chips. Some also recalled the most recent time they had consumed these products and considered having nucleic acid tests.
Rival brands are reported to have been gaining from PepsiCo misfortune as some consumers planned to throw their Pepsi away in fear of food contamination while others decided to purchase competing brands.
Whether the PepsiCo products were contaminated is still unknown and the company did not reveal which sections those eight infected employees worked in.
A Wuhan-based virologist, the epicentre of the Corona virus outbreak, believed the novel coronavirus could survive about one week in normal room temperatures, or about 20 C.
According to Fan, samples collected from inside and outside the factory were all negative.
PepsiCo carried out large-scale sanitation of its canteen, dressing room, workshop hand-washing area, toilet and assembly lines on June 15 and 20.
All employees were quarantined at home on June 15 and received nucleic acid tests the next day. On June 20, a total of 480 people from the company were transferred to centralised quarantine venues. The results of nucleic acid tests were all negative. At the same time, all employees who lived in shared apartments were put under observation at home.
As of Saturday afternoon, 87 close contacts from the company had been traced and quarantined at designated venues.
Yan Qiang, an analyst specialising in fast-moving consumer goods in Beijing-based Hejun Consulting noted that if the situation deteriorates – for example, if PepsiCo is labeled by consumers as lacking internal supervision – its sales in China would be “seriously” affected.
“PepsiCo owes consumers an explanation how this happened,” Yan said.
Zhu also believed the incident would be “a blow” to the brand.
PepsiCo products are enjoyed by consumers more than 1 billion times a day in more than 200 countries and territories across the world, the company claimed.
PepsiCo generated more than $67 billion in net revenue in 2019, driven by a complementary food and beverage portfolio that includes Frito-Lay, Gatorade, Pepsi-Cola, Quaker and Tropicana.
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