Economy

Food companies lack confidence in their own products

By Wang Hongyi (China Daily)
Updated: 2011-05-10 14:40

SHANGHAI - Most of the companies in the city's food industry are not confident when evaluating their own quality standards, a survey shows.

The survey, conducted by the Shanghai Association for Quality, polled more than 800 companies, including food-processing, food-producing and drink-producing companies, accounting for about 22 percent of the city's 3,794 companies that have received food-production licenses.

The companies rated themselves according to the credit evaluation norms for food industry enterprises issued by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology in 2010.

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The results of the survey show that companies gave themselves an average score of 681.78 out of a possible 1,000. However, 559 companies, or about 67.8 percent of those surveyed, scored below 600, which, according to the ministry's norms, means they are in the fourth and lowest grade.

Some 46.9 percent of companies said they did not think they should shoulder the major responsibility for guaranteeing food safety, although they think they should be stronger in this regard.

The survey also showed that food quality control staff accounted for only 3.9 of the combined total of the companies' employees, and that more than 8 percent of small and medium-size companies didn't have any qualified quality control staff for their food products.

"Even the food companies are not confident of their own products. So who should we believe in?" said a local woman surnamed Wang, 46. She stressed that the government should impose harsh punishments on companies that fail to meet food safety requirements.

Shanghai launched a citywide campaign to clean up the food sector after a scandal concerning dyed steam buns, which emerged last month.

The main problem with most of the food companies is poor food hygiene standards, according to the Shanghai Municipal Bureau of Quality and Technical Supervision.

According to the Shanghai Municipal People's Congress, the city's legislative body, six working teams have been established to inspect food safety. Inspectors will randomly purchase food products for testing.

The campaign will last until June 6 and the test reports will be released to the public.

In the meantime, the city is encouraging food industry insiders to expose scandals and alert the government to illegal practices or food safety issues. The steamed buns scandal was brought to light by one of the company's employees, who tipped off a TV station. More insiders are encouraged to come forward and report the illegal activities, said Tang Minhao, vice-director of the Shanghai Food and Drug Administration.

Informers are eligible for a reward of 10,000 to 50,000 yuan ($1,540 to 7,700).

In addition, a hotline and a short message platform have been set up in the city to take complaints from residents.