Sanquan Food, a frozen food producer based in Central China's Henan Province, denied reports that samples of the company's frozen dumplings appeared to have tested positive for African swine fever, saying they were rumors.
A report by the Economic Observer on Friday said that the major animal epidemic disease outbreak prevention and control office of the Xiangxi Tujia and Miao Autonomous Prefecture in Central China's Hunan Province had found African swine fever virus in some samples of Sanquan frozen dumplings.
The office had ordered all online stores in the prefecture to pull Sanquan food from the shelves and that it would conduct further investigation, it said.
Although the report had been retracted from the newspaper's website as of press time, it went viral on Chinese social media over the weekend.
However, a customer service employee of Sanquan Taobao store told the Global Times on Sunday that they had not received any notice telling them to pull products.
Online reports were just rumors, said the employee, adding that "they did not even provide any authentic documents with official seals."
Sanquan Food also replied on an interactive platform on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange on Friday that it received no notice from relevant authorities, saying it would further investigate the incident.
Meanwhile, products from 11 frozen food brands, including Kedi Group and Shandong Qi Hui Food, were also reported to contain the African swine fever virus in a test in Northwest China's Gansu Province, The Beijing News reported on Friday.
Gansu authorities confirmed the news with The Beijing News, saying they were still investigating.
