Editor’s note: Sign up for CNN’s Meanwhile in China newsletter, which explores what you need to know about the country’s rise and how it affects the world.
Hong Kong
CNN
–
Public anger is growing in China over allegations that a major state-owned food company has cut costs by using the same tankers to transport fuel and cooking oil – without cleaning them in between.
The scandal, which implicates China’s largest grain storage and transportation company Sinograin, and private conglomerate Hopefull Grain and Oil Group, has raised concerns about food contamination in a country rocked in recent decades by a string of food safety scares. food and drugs – and has drawn harsh criticism. by Chinese state media.
It was an “open secret” in the shipping industry that the tankers were doing double duty, according to a report in the state-run Beijing News newspaper last week, which claimed that trucks carrying fuel or chemical liquids were also being used to transport edible foods. liquids such as cooking oil, syrup and soybean oil, without proper cleaning procedures.
On Tuesday, the food safety office of China’s State Administrative Council announced that an interdepartmental team would investigate the edible oil shipment, vowing that those responsible for any misuse “will be severely punished in accordance with the law,” according to a statement. posted on the website of the main market regulator.
The two companies mentioned in the media report have also said that investigations are ongoing.
Meanwhile, other major edible oil producers not named in the report issued statements saying they did not use fuel trucks to transport their products.
Food safety and security have been bedrock issues for Chinese leader Xi Jinping, who has linked them to national stability and called their successful oversight a test of the government’s ability to govern.
As discussion of the allegations erupted on social media in recent days, China’s tightly controlled national-level state media also rushed to criticize the alleged abuses — in a sign that the state wanted to be seen as driving the case’s condemnation, as opposed to actions to beat. public outrage.
State broadcaster CCTV earlier this week called the alleged practice and possible contamination of foodstuffs from fuel in tankers “amounting to poisoning” and showing “extreme disregard for the lives and health of consumers”.
Communist Party spokesman People’s Daily said that when food safety is at stake there is “no right to remain silent” and called on regulators to act.
Experts quoted in official media also discussed the health risks of the alleged practices.
“Using chemical tankers for edible oils will inevitably result in residual contamination,” said Liu Shaowei, a food safety expert quoted by CCTV.
Long-term consumption of oils with chemical residues can lead to poisoning with symptoms such as nausea, vomiting and diarrhea. It can even cause irreversible damage to organs, including the liver and kidneys, Liu added, according to the broadcaster.
Public reaction and investigations
On China’s heavily moderated social media platforms, many members of the public called for product recalls and greater oversight of the industry.
Some appear to link the situation to broader issues in the country, where an economic downturn is fueling social disillusionment and there are deep concerns about the limits of accountability for powerful, government-linked entities.
“Even the essential cooking oil for people’s daily life has now become problematic… Ordinary people cannot protect themselves properly… Now I just want to make fun of (phrases like) ‘rule of law’ and ‘t’ I serve the people every time I see them.” read a comment on China’s X-like social media platform Weibo that garnered thousands of likes.
As public anger simmered, state-owned Sinograin said on Saturday it had launched inspections across its operations and vowed to stop working with any transport provider found to be in breach of safety rules.
“Sinograin requires all units in the system to strictly fulfill their responsibilities, observe labor standards and prevent contamination risks for grain and oil stocks,” the company, China’s official grain collector, said in a statement. posted on her official Weibo account.
A staff member from Hopefull Grain and Oil Group on Monday told state-run Economic View news agency that “relevant departments” have investigated the matter and will make an official announcement. The person added that a tanker described in the media report was not owned by the company and said there were no quality issues with their brand of oil products, according to Economic View.
CNN was unable to reach Hopefull Grain and Oil Group despite repeated calls. When reached by phone by CNN, a representative from Sinograin declined to provide additional comment after its online statement.
There is no official product recall notification. However, CNN found that there were no products available for purchase at the official store of Sinograin’s Jinding cooking oil brand on e-commerce platform Taobao on Wednesday afternoon, although it was unclear why.
Experts quoted by state media noted that while China does not have a specific law governing the transportation procedures of edible oils, national guidelines state that shippers must 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 “shall not be stored or transported together with toxic or harmful items” and mixing toxic and harmful inedible raw materials is a criminal offense punishable by a penalty of during imprisonment. Those found guilty of food poisoning resulting in death can face the death penalty.
Despite rising living standards in recent decades, food safety has been an ongoing issue in China, with dozens of high-profile scandals reported by local media since the early 2000s, prompting tighter government regulations.
In one of the most egregious examples, six babies died and an estimated 300,000 others became ill from powdered milk formula containing the toxic industrial chemical melamine. Several executives found responsible for the 2008 case were eventually sentenced to death, and the tragedy caused deep distrust of domestic products and food safety in China.
The widespread sale and use of “gutter oil”—or cooking oil recycled from gutters, household drains, and grease traps—emerged as a major issue in the early 2010s. Another case in 2022, of also exposed by state media, showed how “dirty” sauerkraut was supplied to popular instant noodle brands.
Xi has repeatedly emphasized the importance of food security and the security of grains and basic food supplies. In a 2013 speech quoted in a People’s Daily report last year, Xi said the ruling Communist Party’s ability to “provide satisfactory food security guarantees” is a “great test of our governance skills”.
“As the ruling party in China, if we cannot manage something as basic as food security, and if we cannot address this issue and even allow it to continue without proper resolution for a long period, the party’s ability to governed will be challenged.” said Xi.
Yanzhong Huang, a senior fellow for global health at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York, said the directive to investigate the current scandal likely came “from the top” — noting that food security is also an issue key to the government’s legitimacy and the charges are landing at a sensitive time when China’s economic difficulties are causing a “more unstable society”.
The situation, Huang added, had the potential to be the biggest food safety scandal since 2008, given the volume of oil that is regularly transported and the implication that this may have been a long-running issue that could have affected some of the population.
“This problem is even worse (than some past scandals) because you can avoid eating gutter oil, for example, by not eating out, but you can’t avoid dirty cooking oil because it’s hard to identified and avoided in daily meals.” he said. “That’s why people are so upset.”