China watchdog launches juice probe after rotten fruit report
The probe includes two branches of the country’s sector leader, China Huiyuan Juice Group.
Farmers sold rotten fruit to distributors, which was then bought by canned fruit producers and juice manufacturers to cut costs, the 21st Century Business Herald said in the report.
“We take this very seriously and have urgently deployed food safety teams in Anhui, Jiangsu, Shandong, and other provinces to immediately open an investigation,” the China Food and Drug Administration said.
Food safety is a serious topic in China where scandals from milk laced with industrial chemicals to recycled “gutter oil” for cooking have left consumers wary. A Pew Research report said nearly four in 10 Chinese view food safety as a “very big problem”.
China’s poor food safety record has hurt global firms, while local milk powder makers have struggled to shrug off a deadly melamine scandal in 2008 which led to the deaths of at least six babies.
To deal with food security, China has expanded a pilot system that tracks the movement of meat and vegetables to the shelf.
