DRUGGED CHICKEN-A STAPLE IN CHINA?

China is fast growing as the capital of fraudulent food products manufactured both for exports as well as domestic consumption. While one will have laud the economic miracles achieved by this ancient country with in a short span of time, what is incomprehensible is why this country is not able to prevent food frauds taking place more and more frequently affecting its image abroad and health of its citizens. Some how countries like India and China are under estimating the innovative genius shown by food criminals who seem to be invariably one step ahead of the government! Latest episode of food fraud comes from some parts of China where chicken farmers are reported to be using banned drugs, antibiotics and non-permissible hormones to fatten their chicken, obviously to make fast money, ignoring the well being of the citizens. Here is commentary on this despicable practices going on unchecked in this country.

On December 18, China Central Television (CCTV), the country's national television station, reported
that several Shandong-located chicken farms fed antibiotics and hormones to chickens every day 
to reduce their death rate and quicken their growth. Hormones, antibiotics and antiviral drugs,
were all fed to the chickens to compensate for the unsanitary conditions in their cages,
according to the CCTV report. The owner of one of the farms says he gave the chickens
at least 18 kinds of antibiotics. Within a mere 40 days, the chickens' weight would surge
upward of 3 kg. To make matters worse, the chickens were found to be  given drugs banned
by the State Food and Drug Administration of China (SFDA). According to the report, some
chickens were fed anti-biotics two days before slaughter.China's poultry raising regulations state that chickens cannot be given drugs at leastone week before being slaughtered to ensure the drugs are no longer in their systems. Two such farms in Gaomi  and Pingdu, both in east China's Shandong Province, sold their chickens to a slaughterhouse  in Pingdu, which belongs to Liuhe Group, the company that provides chicken to the China
division of Yum Brands of Shanghai, which owns the KFC fast food chain. Yum's logistics center then
delivered the chicken to its fast food stores, said the report.Companies belonging  ;to Liuhe Group
also fabricated feeding logs for their chicken farms and produced quarantine qualifications without
 conducting any tests, said the report. On December 21, the Shanghai Food and Drug Administration
conducted a food safety check at KFC outlets. It found that one of 32 samples taken from eight
batches of Yum Brands' raw chicken was suspected to be contaminated with the anti-viral medicine amantadine, which is banned for use in food. The Shanghai food and drug authority
has asked Yum to recall related products fr omits KFC restaurants&nb sp;and has launched a citywide
inspection of KFC outlets. Yum Brands Inc., the world's largest restaurant group, is believed to have known

about the antibiotics in its chicken as far back as 2010. Beijing Review was unable to reach

Yum Brands for comment. McDonald's and the Japanese fast food chain Yoshinoya have also been embroiled in the chicken scandal. On December 23, the Beijing Animal Inspection authority uncovered that
23 restaurants or food companies bought chicken from Liuhe Group, including Yoshinoya.
Some dishes incorporating chicken have been withdrawn from sale at Yoshinoya restaurantsin Beijing,
reported the Xinhua News Agency. On December 26, McDonald's admitted that the Liuhe
Group was its secondtier supplier.It claims to have stopped using raw chicken from Liuhe since December 18. During a press conference held on December 25, Bi Meijia, spokesman for the Ministry of Agriculture (MOA), said that relevant poultry raisers and processors have been shutdown
and are currently under investigation. The MOA has dispatched a group ofexperts to Shandong
Province to inspect the matter, he said.

Globally food adulterators and fraudulent players are having a swell time in making money by cheating the consumers and the regulatory agencies through very innovative techniques and higher the prices of food products larger seems to be margins for this industry! Olive oil, Saffron, Honey, etc are prime candidates for fraudulent practices and due to many reaons they are able to get away without being detected and pinished. Milk is another food item attracting adulterators in droves and this is an example of how such activities are sustained for decades in every part of the world. Imagine the genius of these criminals in India where milk is made without the help of a cow or a buffalo but using chemicals like urea and detergents! Probably people, especially in poor and developing countries may have to live with this evil till adequate resources are available to them to create required infrastructural facilities to check, uncover and bring to book those indulging in food related criminal activities.

V.H.POTTY
http://vhpotty.blogspot.com/
http://foodtechupdates.blogspot.com

PRICE FOR FAST GROWTH-CHINESE EXPERIENCE

Is the food safety situation really bad in China which is aspiring to outpace the United States and become the most powerful nation on earth? If some recent reports are to be believed, Chinese citizens are highly disadvantaged because of a food production system afflicted by malpractices, adulteration and fraud widely prevalent in that country. It appears the citizens are so concerned that they have raised their vigilance to a high level to avoid such dangerous foods and any help to navigate the treacherous food market is eagerly accepted. Recent evolving of an app in Apple's iPhone for accessing to food safety episodes on every day basis has become instant success. Here is a report that peeps into the food scenario in China.

'There's mercury in the baby formula. Cabbages are sprayed with formaldehyde. Gelatin capsules for pills, tens of millions of them, are laced with chromium. Used cooking oil is scooped out of gutters for recycling, right along with the sewage. Accounts of dubious or unsafe food in China are as mesmerizing as they are disturbing — "artificial green peas," grilled kebabs made from cat meat, contaminated chives, chlorine showing up in soft drinks. There have been stories of imitation soy sauce made from hair clippings, ink and paraffin being used to dress up cheap noodles, and pork buns so loaded with bacteria that they glow in the dark. A new investigation by the Chinese magazine Caixin has found that "these publicized food safety scandals represent only a fraction of unsafe food production practices. Hundreds of chemical food additives are pumped into products that Chinese people consume every day." The official Chinese news agency Xinhua reported Wednesday that Chinese authorities have discovered 15,000 cases of substandard food so far this year while shutting down 5,700 unlicensed food businesses. Things are so bad that a new iPhone app was recently launched to track food scandals nationwide. The app, which sends out daily updates on the latest outrages, was reportedly downloaded more than 200,000 times in the first week. In 2008, infant formula and other milk products were found to be contaminated with melamine, an industrial chemical used to make fertilizer and plastic pipe. Six children died and some 300,000 fell sick. The melamine scandal caused a nationwide panic among parents of young children, and there was a worldwide recall of Chinese products ranging from biscuits to baby formula. Two Chinese milk producers were executed for selling more than 3 million pounds of contaminated milk powder. There were unsettling echoes of that scandal last week when China's largest dairy, Inner Mongolia Yili Industrial Group, found elevated levels of mercury in its infant formula and was forced to recall six months' worth of production. Yili was one of the dairies involved in the 2008 scandal. Milk and dairy safety has become such a sensitive topic in China that some Internet searches about the scandal were reportedly blocked by government censors. Another major milk producer, China Mengniu Dairy, had to destroy large batches of milk in December when government spot checks turned up evidence of aflatoxin, a cancer-causing fungus. Within a day of the news, my colleague Edward Wong reported, people on the Internet "had posted or copied posts on the bad milk nearly four million times." The string of food-safety scandals, especially in the dairy sector, has led to falling share prices — and significant buying opportunities for foreign investors, according to a Reuters report published in the International Herald Tribune. The Danish-Swedish dairy group Arla, for example, said last week that it plans to buy a 6 percent stake in Mengniu. China is already the world's largest formula market, Reuters reported, noting that the country is "expected to overtake the United States as the largest dairy market by 2020." That timeline could be hastened by a possible relaxation of China's so-called one-child policy in 2015".

One thing baffling about the above report is whether this is a new development consequent to the liberalization of Chines economy or was existing even prior to it but never exposed before. The new found economic status of many families due to rapid development during the last two decades has raised the expectations of the population and this could be one of the reasons for demand for safer and better foods. The innovative ability of Chinese fraudsters to camouflage their tinkering of food is to be admired and food technologists can learn a trick or two from them in utilizing the same techniques in improving many existing products or developing new products. How about India? The fraudsters here are in no way inferior to their Chinese counterparts and the classical example is the infamous "milk" made without cows or buffaloes or any other animals!.


V.H.POTTY
http://vhpotty.blogspot.com/
http://foodtechupdates.blogspot.com

RAMPANT MISBRANDING AND MISLABELING-SMALL CAN BE UGLY TOO!

Every consumer knows what is meant by food adulteration and its consequences. Though it is an arduous task for a common man scouting for the food that makes up the daily diet, advent of branding and the front of the pack labeling regulations make the task some what easier. The nutrient labeling provision is another tool in the armory of the consumer to pick and choose the food that fits the individual needs. After the setting up of FSSAI at Delhi the consumer expectations have soared on the possibility of adulterators being brought to book by this much heralded safety agency. That this is not happening is a big disappointment for may honest citizens as reflected by increasing incidences of food frauds reported from all parts of the country. Added to this, few courts have intervened to suspend the operation of some of the key provisions of Food Safety Act making the food market environment highly dangerous. Recent report from Indore regarding the wide prevalence of mis-branding amply reflect this reality. Here is as take on the same.

"The problem of misbranding is on the rise in the city, especially when it comes to food products. For starters, misbranding means wrong packing number and dates on the product. This problem is as dangerous in nature as the adulteration was. Out of a total of 80 samples of various products as collected by the food department based on complaints since the coming into force of thefood safety Act, 2006, nearly half of them were found to be misbranded. The manufacturers normally involve themselves in such illegal acts to cheat the customers so as to keep their cash register ringing, say experts. First, by not mentioning the batch number and date of manufacturing of the product, they can simply keep selling the product even beyond the expiry date, add they. Talking to ToI, Manish Swamy, food safety officer, said that we have started working according to the provision of the new Food Safety Act. Forget adulteration, the misbranding of the products by the manufacturers has become a big problem in the city, said Swamy. It is why we have issued only 130 fresh licences as against 1000 applications received by us from the prospective food traders, said he.
Meanwhile, the Federation of Madhya Pradesh Food Product Manufacturers and Sellers Association is planning to call on the opposition party parliamentarians in New Delhi shortly to urge them to raise voice against the Food safety Act in Parliament. It was confirmed by the president of the federation, Ramesh Khandelwal."

FSSAI itself had reported some time back that milk vended through out the country is adulterated heavily and unsuspecting citizens are being taken for a ride in places like Delhi under its very nose! What is disturbing is the stand taken by small traders to resist the operation of food safety laws in the name of harassment to them by the inspection officials in the market. Though there may be some truth in this claim, not enforcing the Act is not the remedy. Democracy does not mean chaos because of misuse of the freedom enshrined in the constitution. The much maligned branded foods offered by organized industry and major players offer safer products and small players must understand this situation. Food safety regulations must be enforced no matter how strongly the small scale industry and the unorganized traders protest their operation.

V.H.POTTY
http://vhpotty.blogspot.com/
http://foodtechupdates.blogspot.com