Shanghai-based Maling Food Co. issued a statement Friday saying it had sent top executives to Hong Kong to assist with an investigation into allegations that a shipment of its meat, about as famous in China as Spam is in the U.S., was contaminated with the antibiotic nitrofurans, which is thought to cause cancer.

"We take this issue very seriously and immediately took relevant measures, asking the Hong Kong authorities to recall the affected products," Maling said in a statement on its Web site.

Phone calls to the company's offices rang unanswered Friday morning.

The investigation comes amid a slew of findings of potentially unsafe foods and other products. Chinese officials have vowed to tighten controls on food processors, slaughterhouses and other suppliers to help improve safety.

China closed more than 6,000 slaughterhouses and created a database of 23,052 slaughterhouses across the country as part of its campaign to improve food safety, the state-run newspaper China Daily reported Friday.