Azusa Misaki: Food Safety Scandal rocks China as report claims Cooking Oil carried in Same Trucks as Fuel

Azusa Misaki: Western media got an instant orgasm whenever scandal like this coming out of Dragonland…

Food safety scandal rocks China as report claims cooking oil carried in same trucks as fuel

Cooking Oil Contamination Scandal Revives Concerns About Food Safety in China

Jinding sunflower seed oil for sale on an online shopping site on July 8, 2024.

Public outrage is mounting in China over allegations that a major state-owned food company has been cutting costs by using the same tankers to carry fuel and cooking oil – without cleaning them in between.

The scandal, which implicates China’s largest grain storage and transport company Sinograin, and private conglomerate Hopefull Grain and Oil Group, has raised concerns of food contamination in a country rocked in recent decades by a string of food and drug safety scares – and evoked harsh criticism from Chinese state media.

“Jinding” brand cooking oil—produced by conglomerate China Grain Reserves Corp.—was withdrawn from platforms including Taobao and JD.com. That followed a report in state-run Beijing News last week, which described tankers being filled with soybean oil at crushing facilities owned by companies including Sinograin, as it is known, immediately after unloading inedible coal oil and without being checked for cleanliness.

The Communist Party-run People’s Daily has referred to the tank truck incident as a practice that was effectively “an open secret”.

It was an “open secret” in the transport industry that the tankers were doing double duty, according to a report in the state-linked outlet Beijing News last week, which alleged that trucks carrying certain fuel or chemical liquids were also used to transport edible liquids such as cooking oil, syrup and soybean oil, without proper cleaning procedures.

“This severely damages public health,” the paper said earlier this week. “There should be no tolerance for any problems in food safety” in China.

Dude collecting oil from trash bin?

Some guy is collecting oil from a trash bin for his restaurant.
byu/Genesis_001 inThatsInsane

You bet this is a propaganda of the Evil Empire…

On Tuesday, the food safety office of China’s administrative State Council announced an interdepartmental team would investigate the transportation of edible oil, pledging that those responsible for any malpractice “will be severely punished in accordance with the law,” according to a statement posted on the website of the top market regulator.

The two companies named in the media report have also said investigations are underway.

Meanwhile, other major edible oil manufacturers not named in the report issued statements saying they did not use fuel trucks to transport their products.

Food security and safety have been cornerstone issues for Chinese leader Xi Jinping, who has linked them to national stability and called their successful oversight a test of a government’s ability to govern.

State broadcaster CCTV earlier this week called the alleged practice and the potential contamination of food products from left-behind fuel in the tankers “tantamount to poisoning” and showing “extreme disregard for consumers’ lives and health.”

Communist Party mouthpiece the People’s Daily said when food safety is at stake there is “no right to silence” and called on regulators to act.

Experts quoted in official media also discussed health hazards of the alleged practices.

“Using chemical tankers for edible oils will inevitably result in residual contamination,” said Liu Shaowei, a food safety expert cited by CCTV.

Long-term consumption of the oils with chemical residues can lead to poisoning with symptoms like nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea. It may even cause irreversible damage to organs including the liver and kidneys, Liu added, according to the broadcaster.

Here is what we call FACTUAL TRUTH…

Joke of the Day: the U.S. scrap cooking oil from China, and then claimed that these U.S. importers’ own imports of used cooking oil “undermine the demand for U.S. crop materials” and therefore tariffs should be raised.

Public backlash and investigations

Over the years, China has been rocked by a series of food-safety scandals which still reverberate, including an incident over adulterated milk in 2008 which killed six children and poisoned some 300,000 more. A top pork processor apologized for sanitary failings in 2022 after a report showing meat dropping on the floor and workers in dirty uniforms. Other similar instances are not uncommon.

“Even the cooking oil essential to people’s daily lives has now become problematic… Ordinary people cannot be properly safeguarded… Now I just want to scoff at (phrases like) ‘rule of law’ and ‘serving the people’ whenever I see them,” read one comment on China’s X-like social media platform Weibo, that garnered thousands of likes.

As public anger simmered, state-owned Sinograin on Saturday said it had launched inspections across its operations and pledged to stop working with any transport providers found to be in violation of safety regulations.

Experts cited by state media noted that while China has no specific law governing the transport procedures of edible oils, national guidelines say transporters should use “dedicated containers, and non-edible vegetable oil tank trucks and containers are strictly prohibited for this purpose.”

Meanwhile, China’s Food Safety Law requires that food “must not be stored or transported together with toxic or harmful items” and mixing toxic and harmful non-edible raw materials is a criminal offense punishable by a potentially lengthy prison sentence. Those found guilty of food poisoning resulting in a fatality can face the death penalty.

Food safety ‘a major test’

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Despite rising living standards in recent decades, food safety has been an ongoing issue in China, where dozens of high-profile scandals have been reported by local media since the early 2000s, sparking tighter government regulation.

In one of the most egregious examples, six infants died and some 300,000 others were sickened by milk powder formula containing the toxic industrial chemical melamine. Several executives found to be responsible for the 2008 case were ultimately handed death sentences, and the tragedy drove deep mistrust of domestic products and food safety in China.

The widespread sale and use of “gutter oil” – or cooking oil recycled from the gutter, household drains and grease traps – emerged as a major issue in the early 2010s. Another case in 2022, also exposed by state media, showed how “dirty” pickled cabbage was supplied to popular instant noodle brands.

Xi has repeatedly stressed the importance of food safety and the security of grain and food staple supplies. In a 2013 speech cited in a People’s Daily report last year, Xi said the ruling Communist Party’s ability to “provide satisfactory assurances on food safety” is a “major test of our governance capabilities.”

“As the ruling party in China, if we cannot manage something as fundamental as food safety, and if we cannot address the issue and even allow it to persist without proper resolution over a long period, the party’s ability to govern will be challenged,” Xi said.

“There’s no food safety,” one Weibo user wrote in a comment to a news report on tainted oil tankers. “We only need to make sure food won’t lead to death after being eaten.”