Naivas Supermarket suspends sale of red meat in all its stores in Kenya

Naivas Supermarket on Thursday evening announced that it has suspended the sale of red meat in all its stores countrywide.

The retailer says it has arrived at that decision to protect its customers’ interest.

Naivas’ chief commercial officer, Willy Kimani, said the supermarket will “subject the whole stock of red meat to a thorough independent lab test and a step-by-step verification of each participant along the whole meat value chain”.

“We will only be selling white meat for now in all our butcheries,” said Kimani.

Naivas, he said, is cooperating with the national and county government agencies “to address this issue”.

Kimani further stated that the firm “does not use or condone the use of any chemical preservatives for meat products.”

The company’s commercial boss said it “will take strong legal action against anybody found to have supplied contaminated meat to Naivas”.

This comes just hours after Machakos Governor Alfred Mutua shut Naivas meat shops in the county over what he termed as harmful chemicals found in the foodstuff.