Media reports say General Administration of Customs officials seized more than 100,000 tons of "zombie meat", long-expired frozen meat products including chicken wings and beef, worth more than 3 billion yuan ($483 million). Some of the meat had been frozen for more than 40 years. The news has shocked the public.

According to the reports, the long-expired frozen meat products are foreign countries' strategic food stocks. They are more likely to enter the market when the strategic stocks are replaced. Because the cost of keeping such meat products in cold storage is as low as 17 yuan per ton per year, their prices are quite low too. Taking advantage of this, some illegal operators smuggle them into China to make profits.

This phenomenon is not unique to China, though. In 2010, Russia uncovered a meat smuggling case which involved the strategic meat reserves of the United States, Brazil, Belgium and Canada that had remained frozen for more than 30 years.

Long-expired meat products are smuggled into China through an illegal network of transportation, reprocessing and distribution chains. Most of the "zombie meat" flows into small restaurants in second-and third-tier cities to avoid the strict quarantine inspection seen in the big cities.