THE GUARDIAN
A food safety scandal has caused mounting public outrage in China days before a high-level Chinese Communist party meeting at which leaders will try to boost confidence in the economy.
Last week the state-run newspaper Beijing News published an in-depth exposé on the “open secret” of fuel tankers being used to transport cooking oil, without the tankers being washed or disinfected in between.
In the report, an undercover reporter interviewed a trucker who had driven a tanker of coal-derived fuel from Ningxia, a region in the west of China, to the east coast city of Qinhuangdao in Hebei, a journey of more than 800 miles. The trucker told the journalist that he was not allowed to return with an empty vehicle, and subsequently drove to a facility in another part of Hebei to load up with nearly 32 tons of soya bean oil, without cleaning the tanker. Several other tankers featured in the article made similar journeys.
The scandal has implicated several major Chinese firms including the state-owned oil and grain company Sinograin and Hopefull Grain and Oil Group, a private conglomerate. Both companies said they were investigating the claims.
This week the office of the food safety commission under China’s State Council said it was investigating the claims and that “individuals found violating the law through improper use of tanker trucks will face severe punishment”.
Chinese regulations state that different tankers should be used for transporting cooking oil and fuel, which is derived from coal and is potentially poisonous.
The Beijing News report revealed that inspections were often absent or cursory. In one case, on a tanker waiting to collect a load of edible oil, a piece of white paper was taped over the writing that indicated it should be used for fuel.
It is not clear where the cooking oil in the fuel-contaminated tankers ultimately ended up. Follow-up reports tracking the truckers identified in the Beijing News article suggested that the tankers delivered oil to packaging facilities run by household brand names in China, intensifying concerns that people could be consuming toxic oil. The article also quoted an industry insider as saying that some of the oil may ultimately be packaged into small bottles for foreign sales.
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