A new food safety legislation passed in China will raise the level of supervision and impose the penalties on culprits, thereby controlling the mounting tainted food scams.
China has recently approved a new legislation to establish a national food safety commission. The law has been introduced in view of rising food scams, aiming to make the supervision more tough and to impose higher penalties on offenders, as reported by VOA.
Currently, there are 450,000 registered food production and processing units in China, but majority of them employ only 10 or less number of people. A UN report in 2008 stated that managing such small enterprises was a big obstacle for ensuring food safety in China.
China’s Ministry of Health states that the situation of food security seems gloomy in the country. In 2008, several scandals of adulterated food products reported in the country. In one of such incidents, consumption of melamine adulterated milk took away the life of six babies and left 300,000 children sick.
However, the courts have sentenced several guilty milk suppliers and dairy executives, but the Chinese consumers are still in a dilemma. Moreover, complaints were filed against imported dairy products, such as Dumex, whose raw materials are imported from New Zealand and Australia.
As per the new law, consumers will be able to get compensation amounting to 10 times the cost of the adulterated food product apart from the compensation for any sort of harm caused by that food. The legislation also prohibits the agencies responsible for the supervision of food safety from advertising food stuffs and individuals (irrespective of their status) advertising for a substandard food product will also be held responsible for damages.
Besides, the new law is aimed at restructuring the regulation, partly by establishing a national food safety commission for coordinating the work of various government departments. However, the responsibility of development and enforcement of standards will remain divided among various ministries. Moreover, whole world would be carefully watching the efficacy of this new law as food products using the Chinese ingredients are sold globally.
According to a Research Analyst at RNCOS, “In 2008, several food safety scams struck China. These scandals indicate to the threat posed to consumers. Further, in an industry which is under immense pressure to refine its laws, investors are also not secure. In order to ensure the food safety, China needs to bolster its risk management. The system should access the extent of physical, biological and chemical threats present in food products and food additives.”
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