http://www.thestar.com/News/World/article/230303
China shuts 180 food plants
Beijing tries to burnish image before Olympics in wake of widening tainted-exports scandal
Jun 28, 2007 04:30 AM
David Barboza
New York Times
SHANGHAI–After weeks of insisting that food here is largely safe, regulators in China have announced they recently closed 180 food plants and inspectors have uncovered more than 23,000 food safety violations.
The nationwide crackdown, which began in December, also found that many small food makers were using industrial chemicals, dyes and other illegal ingredients in making a range of food products, everything from candy to seafood.
China is fighting to overcome intense criticism for exporting unsafe products ahead of next summer's Olympic Games in Beijing, a great source of national pride. Authorities have pushed for more stringent controls and increased publicity of their efforts to control the problem.
The country's exports of contaminated vegetable protein earlier this year triggered one of the largest pet food recalls in U.S. and Canadian history. Tainted food ingredients also leeched into American meat and fish supplies, and other problem foods, such as tainted fish, have turned up in Europe and other parts of Asia.
China has denied that its food exports are hazardous and has seemingly retaliated in recent weeks by seizing U.S. and European imports.
Earlier this week, China said it had impounded two shipments of food from the United States because the orange pulp and apricots contained "excessive amounts of bacteria and mould." And earlier this year, regulators blocked imports of Evian water from France, saying bacteria levels in the water exceeded national standards.
Still, the government has moved aggressively in recent months to crack down on fake and counterfeit foods. But Tuesday's announcement, which appeared on the website of the country's top quality watchdog, the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine, has added fuel to concerns about rampant fraud in the food industry here.
Regulators said 33,000 law enforcement officials combed the nation and found counterfeit bottled water, fake soy sauce, banned food additives and illegal meat processing plants.
"These are not isolated cases," Han Yi, director of the administration's quality control and inspection department told the state-run media.
China Daily, the nation's English language newspaper, said industrial chemicals, including dyes, mineral oils, paraffin wax, formaldehyde and malachite green, had been found in everything from candy, pickles and biscuits to seafood.
Regulators said they also learned that sodium hydroxide and hydrochloric acid were being used to process shark fin and ox tendon. These industrial chemicals are often toxic or corrosive and can be used in everything from drain cleaners to surfboard wax.
Experts here say the problem is that small businesses feel they need to go to extraordinary lengths to make a profit. Corruption and bribery have also infected the food and drug industry here.
The former head of the nation's food and drug watchdog was recently sentenced to death for accepting bribes and approving the licensing of substandard drugs. And now, a Ministry of Agriculture official is on trial in Beijing for accepting bribes in exchange for endorsing food products.
But not all the problems stem from corruption or malfeasance. International consulting firm A.T. Kearney issued a report this week saying one cause of food safety problems is a lack of cold storage and logistics systems.
In China, the study said, there are only about 30,000 cold storage trucks. In the U.S., there are about 280,000. "In the entire supply chain there's no common standard or world class standard," said Zhang Bing, who helped prepare the study.
Meanwhile, China's shoddy product safety record took another hit yesterday after Japanese importers recalled toothpaste containing a chemical used in antifreeze, a move that came on the heels of claims by a U.S. company that its Chinese partner was supplying faulty tires.
Three Japanese importers have recalled millions of Chinese-made travel toothpaste sets, many sold to inns and hotels, after they were found to contain as much as 6.2 per cent of diethylene glycol.
Meanwhile, U.S. regulators ordered New Jersey-based Foreign Tire Sales to recall as many as 450,000 tires after the firm said an unknown number of light truck radials could suffer tread separation.
