Food safety incidents in China
Food safety incidents in China have received increased international media scrutiny following the reform and opening of the country, and its joining the World Trade Organization.
During summer vacation, the schools had not been cleaned or disinfected, and the pupils might have been exposed to unsanitary food or drinking water when they returned in September.
Many restaurants in Shanghai, Beijing, and Hong Kong stopped purchasing turbot after officials discovered the high amounts of illegal antibiotics.
[17] In early 2006, Greenpeace tested vegetables in two Hong Kong grocery stores, and discovered that only 30% of their samples contained acceptable amounts of pesticide residue.
[19] In June, July, and August 2006, the Shuguo Yanyi Restaurant in Beijing served raw Amazonian snail meat and, as a result, 70 diners were diagnosed with angiostrongylus meningitis.
The snail meat contained Angiostrongylus cantonensis, "a parasite that harms people's nervous system" causing headaches, vomiting, stiff necks, and fevers.
[21] In December 2006, sixteen diners were hospitalized after eating a poisonous variety of boletus mushrooms in Beijing at the Dayali Roast Duck Restaurant.
According to John Newton of Interpol, Chinese organized crime is involved in working across national boundaries and faking drugs on an industrial scale, now appearing throughout Africa.
[citation needed] In May 2007, the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection, and Quarantine (AQSIQ) confirmed that two domestic companies had exported melamine-contaminated wheat gluten and rice protein blamed for the deaths of dogs and cats in the United States.
[29] In August 2007, AQSIQ introduced recall systems for unsafe food products and toys and on December 3, 2007, China ordered 69 categories of products to be bar-coded at factories amid efforts to improve product safety, in response to several recent incidents, including: "scares rang[ing] from ducks and hens that were fed cancer-causing Sudan Red dye to make their egg yolks red, to pet food made of melamine-tainted wheat protein that killed scores of dogs and cats in the United States.
In January 2008, several Japanese people in the Hyōgo and Chiba prefectures fell ill after consuming Chinese-produced jiaozi (dumplings) tainted with the insecticide methamidophos.
[42] On February 5, 2008, Hyōgo and Chiba prefectural police departments announced that they were treating these cases as attempted murder,[43] establishing a joint investigation team.
When Japanese police and other prefectural authorities inspected the recalled dumplings, they found pesticides other than methamidophos, including dichlorvos and parathion.
[55] On the same day, Hiroto Yoshimura, the Commissioner-General of Japan's National Police Agency, argued against the Chinese authorities that the Japanese had already offered test results and photographic evidence and claimed that some part of China's assertion "cannot be overlooked".
[77] Hunan police shut down various underground workshops that produced fake green beans by mixing soybeans with various chemical additives.
As reported by Shanghaiist, local pork dealers would buy up dead meat unfit for sale, process it in illegal workshops, and then re-introduce the products into the legal market.
[87] According to some sources,[88] respective fake lamb meat also reached Yum-owned "Little Sheep" hot pot chain restaurants, though Yum itself declined these rumours.
[90] In September 2013, according to JRJ[91] and Shanghaiist[92] six workshops near Xi'an, Shaanxi, have been shut down that produced fake beef by mixing pork with chemicals, such as paraffin wax and industrial salts.
In October 2013, cat meat, slaughtered at a "black" slaughterhouse in Huai'an City near Shanghai, was sold to butchers and local markets under the guise of "rabbit".
[95] Shanghai Husi Food Co. Ltd. supplied products containing expired meat to McDonald's, KFC, Pizza Hut, Starbucks, and Burger King.
[96] The company was forced in July 2014 to shut down after local television station Dragon TV ran footage of the company's factory workers picking meat such as hamburger patties from off the factory floor and throwing them directly into meat mixers, and handling poultry and beef on the assembly line with their bare hands.
Mushrooms,[97] tofu, mianjing (a Chinese starch product), mixian (mainly rice made noodles), vermicelli, and flour were among the food that contained contaminated substances.
A video made by a Chinese dietitian has become popular on Internet showing a commonly adopted way to turn boiled water into "high quality pork soup" for hot pot.
By adding ethyl maltol, capsicum oleoresin, and disodium 5'-ribonucleotide into boiled water, fake pork hot pot soup becomes ready to serve in 20 seconds.
As investigators dug deeper, it was revealed to the public that many cooks of hot pot restaurants took training programs in China that approved the fraud to reduce cost.
In response to the failed test, the Chinese Food and Drug Administration ordered the three companies to cease production and to recall any milk that has been sold.
In response to these deaths, China's National Health Commission has warned its citizens not to make food with fermented flour and rice.
[108] In March 2022, a couple in Huai'an, Jiangsu used pork as raw material, soaked it in sodium nitrite, colored it with erythrosine, processed it into semi-finished cured meat, and sold it as beef, earning more than 800,000 yuan.
Kangshifu voluntarily withdrew the involved instant noodles from the market, and KFC and other companies mentioned on the supplier's website denied any association.
Chinese authorities overturned previous official reassurances that it was duck neck, as video evidence of the scandal quickly propagated on social media.
