Hong Kong’s Vitasoy has fired employee who wrote memo mourning death of co-worker who stabbed police officer, chairman says

The unauthorised internal message at the beverage giant created a firestorm on social media in mainland China, including calls for boycotts of its products

Winston Lo, 80, reiterates that wording of memo was ‘extremely inappropriate’, ’deviated from the company’s core values’

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Beverage giant Vitasoy says it has sacked the member of staff responsible for a memo relating to the stabbing of a police officer. Photo: K. Y. Cheng

Published: 8:12pm, 7 Jul 2021Updated: 11:53pm, 7 Jul 2021

The head of Hong Kong beverage giant Vitasoy has sought to defuse a simmering crisis by revealing the company has sacked a staff member responsible for an internal memo expressing condolences to the family of an employee who stabbed a police officer and killed himself on July 1.

Vitasoy executive chairman Winston Lo Yau-lai reiterated that the memo’s wording was “extremely inappropriate” and “deviated from the company’s core values”, according to an internal letter to employees widely circulated online and on Weibo.

The company was swept into a political maelstrom after the controversial message was sent to employees on Friday morning, saying a 50-year-old purchasing manager surnamed Leung had “unfortunately died” in Causeway Bay on Thursday. It did not directly refer to the stabbing.

The memo claimed to represent the company and expressed its deepest condolences to Leung’s family, which, it said, had been contacted by Vitasoy’s human resources department.

The expression of support quickly triggered public uproar in mainland China – the company’s primary market – where its products were soon threatened with a boycott.

Tags such as “boycott Vitasoy”, “stay away from Vitasoy” and “Vitasoy get out of mainland China” proliferated on Weibo, China’s version of Twitter.

Breaking his silence in a three-page letter sent to employees on Tuesday, Lo, 80, said the leaked memo had been written by a staff member without official approval and that they had been sacked following a thorough investigation.

“The employee’s behaviour and the wording in the file are all extremely inappropriate, and have completely deviated from the beliefs and core values of Vitasoy. I think this is completely unacceptable,” he said, adding the company reserved the right to take legal action against the fired employee.