Walmart Recalls: Donkey Meat and Collapsing Table and Chairs

Retail

Published: January 3, 2014 7:15 am

Last Updated: April 28, 2020 9:29 am

Retail giant Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (NYSE: WMT) on Thursday issued a recall notice for about 73,400 folding table and chair sets sold by the company in the United States from May to November 2013. According to the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), “The chairs can collapse unexpectedly, posing a fall hazard and a risk of finger injury, including finger amputation.”

And in a repeat of an issue the company faced in China some two years ago, Walmart is recalling donkey meat following tests that showed that the product had been tainted with fox meat. In 2011 the Chinese government closed several Walmart stores for mislabeling some pork products. Walmart issued an apology for selling the tainted donkey meat, saying that the incident appears to be isolated to “select stores in China.”

Back in the U.S., the CPSC notice said that Walmart had received 10 reports of injuries from collapsing chairs made by a Chinese company: “Injury reports include one finger amputation, three fingertip amputations, sprained or fractured fingers and one report of a sore back.” Walmart sold the table and chair set under its Mainstays brand at a retail price of about $50.

Of the two incidents, the tainted meat issue is the more troublesome for Walmart. China is the company’s new frontier and Chinese consumers do not react well to being sold mislabeled or tainted products.

Just ask Yum! Brands Inc. (NYSE: YUM), owners of the KFC fried chicken restaurants. Revelations of excessive levels of antibiotics in some of its chicken killed the company’s sales in China, and after more than a year sales have still not recovered fully.

Walmart’s market share in China has been falling, according to a report at MarketWatch, and the company plans to open more than 100 new stores in the country over the next three years to bring its total locations to more than 500. China accounts for about 30% of Walmart’s total sales.

Walmart shares closed at $78.91 on Thursday, in a 52-week range of $67.72 to $81.37. Shares were inactive in Friday’s premarket trading.

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