Shuanghui's drug-residue pork brought personal fines up to 37.6M yuan on its executives

On the evening of October 9, 2026, Shuanghui Development announced that the company, its subsidiaries and relevant senior executives had received administrative penalty decisions from regulators in Wangkui County, Heilongjiang Province, and Luohe City, Henan Province. The trigger was excessive lincomycin residue in the "hind pork cuts" produced at Wangkui Shuanghui. Total fines imposed on institutions and individuals exceed 120 million yuan.

What stunned the market was the personal fines, issued under Article 75 of the 2019 revised implementation regulations of the Food Safety Law — the "penalize the responsible individual" rule that allows fining an executive one to ten times his income from the company in the previous year. Chairman Wan Hongwei was fined 37.6462 million yuan, president Ma Xiangjie 5.661 million, vice president Qiao Haili 6.4694 million and chief engineer Wang Yufen 6.5862 million — about 56.36 million yuan across the four.

The penalty decision faults headquarters management: no inspection standard formulated for the live-pig "rest period," no food safety director equipped to match the enterprise's scale, and established testing specifications not strictly implemented. Even the apology statement misstated "5,892 head and 38,863 head" as "batches," which was itself recognized as a violation of the Anti-Unfair Competition Law.

The same article had previously been applied mainly to small and medium food businesses — Langfang city's market regulator disclosed only 3 individuals penalized under it since 2021, totaling 397,100 yuan — so this is its first application at tens-of-millions scale to the chairman of one of China's largest meat processors, a company with a market value of over 80 billion yuan. WH Group specifically confirmed the matter involved no dishonesty or fraudulent conduct by Wan or Ma: the liability here is managerial dereliction, not intent.

Institutions and individuals fined over 120M yuan; four executives ~56.36M yuan personally, chairman Wan Hongwei 37.65M; 2026 net profit cut by 63.8M yuan.

The company never formulated inspection standards for the live-pig rest period — the gap sat in headquarters system-building, not on supplier farms.

It failed to equip a food safety director matching the scale of the enterprise, as required.

Established testing and management specifications were not strictly implemented.

Its own apology statement misstated 5,892 and 38,863 head of pigs as "batches," ruled a violation of the Anti-Unfair Competition Law.

Penalties that hit the decision-maker's own wallet — up to ten times his yearly income — reprice food safety risk in a way corporate fines never do.

The penalties will reduce Shuanghui Development's attributable 2026 net profit by 63.8066 million yuan — an impact the company called controllable and short of any mandatory delisting trigger. WH Group's announcement stressed there was no dishonesty or fraud by Wan or Ma. The apology statement promised rectification in six areas, including stronger source control, upgraded testing capability and optimized process management. Executives' personal finances, not just shareholders' value, are now tied to food safety compliance.