Papa John’s hit by out-of-date pizza dough after meat scandal  

南京一披萨店用过期面团被立案调查 面临上限处罚

A Papa John's store in Nanjing, Jiangsu province. (Photo /jiangsu.china.com.cn)

(ECNS) – Hot on the heels of a meat scandal affecting some fast food chains in China, Papa John's has also been caught using pizza dough past its shelf life.

The Jinling Evening News reported Tuesday that a Papa John's store in Nanjing, Jinagsu Province, was found making pizzas with dough that was two days out-of-date.

The pizza chain is mired in a food safety scandal that has shocked the nation in the past few days. Out-of-date meat had been supplied by the Shanghai Husi Food Company to fast food stores including McDonald's, Burger King and Papa John's.

But it seems the scandal failed to improve Papa John's food safety awareness. Investigators found over 50 out-of-date pizza doughs in the store, placed on iron plates with fresh ones.

The store's manager-on-duty claimed the out-of-date dough was used to train new employees who accidentally made it into pizzas for sale.

However, it was discovered that the store had ordered more pizza dough than it could sell. Instead of dumping the dough, they made it into 42 pizzas to cover up the glitch.

The store has been shut down, and the quality control department is looking into the case to decide the penalty.