McDonald's in Japan said Friday it had suspended sales of all products made with chicken from China, underscoring growing concerns over food safety following a scandal that saw expired meat make its way onto consumers' plates.

"All our chicken meals are now being made with poultry from Thailand," the chief executive of McDonald's Japan unit, Sara Casanova, said in a statement.

In the last financial year, McDonald's Japan relied on China for 38 percent of its chicken products, with the rest imported from Thailand.

Confidence-building move

The move marked an attempt to regain weary customers' confidence after a Shanghai television station revealed earlier in the week that a McDonald's supplier had been selling the fast food giant out-of-date meat.

The Japanese government has also said it would stop buying "any food imports that were processed by the company in question."

The announcement from officials in Tokyo came as McDonald's in Hong Kong said it would also stop selling Chicken McNuggets and other items from Shanghai Husi Food, the meat supplier at the center of the scandal.

cjc/hg (AFP, Reuters)