After clenbuterol, dyed steamed bread has become the new focus of food safety. CCTV's Consumer Proposition reveals that in some supermarkets in Shanghai, the wheat steamed bread that looks white, fragrant and soft, and the attractive corn steamed bread in Huang Cancan are actually made of expired steamed bread. Some steamed buns near or beyond the shelf life were shipped back to the company, and after all kinds of food additives were put into battle, they were "facelift" and became new steamed buns.

There are 30,000 problem steamed buns every day, which is huge. However, dyed steamed bread is by no means unique. In fact, it reflects a long-standing problem in the field of food safety in China-the confusion in the handling of expired food.

Who will decide the "period"

Expired food: Who decides the "date" and how to decide the "date" In the United States, there are generally four dates on food packaging: sales period, best taste period, edible period and sealed packaging period. Food that has passed the edible period can no longer be eaten and should be destroyed. In China, there is no such detail, but generally speaking, the shelf life we are talking about means that the food will not change in appearance, color, taste, taste, safety and other aspects within the time limit. In fact, this is also a promise of the manufacturer, indicating that the manufacturer should be responsible for food safety during the shelf life. At the same time, this shelf life is generally determined by the manufacturer, who will conduct rigorous experiments and then multiply the shelf life obtained from the experiments by 0.7 or 0.8 to ensure safety. It is not realistic for the industry and even the government to formulate a unified shelf life standard, because each manufacturer's technology is good or bad, and backward technology may deteriorate before the shelf life, otherwise it can effectively extend the shelf life. It is of course an ideal state that the quality supervision department can spare energy to supervise each enterprise to set the shelf life.

Harm of expired food to human body

May cause food poisoning and acute infectious diseases.

If the shelf life is exceeded, although the food may not have problems, the proportion of accidents has increased. For example, there is a chance of one in ten thousand within the shelf life, and it may be one percent after the shelf life. Many manufacturers and sellers are lucky enough to return expired food to the furnace.

What happens when you eat expired food? According to experts, expired food may lead to bacterial reproduction, which can lead to "biological" food poisoning and acute infectious diseases after eating; On the other hand, expired food can also cause chemical changes (such as rancidity of oil), which will lead to "chemical" food poisoning after eating. Food poisoning can be divided into biological type and chemical type according to its nature. ) Many expired foods go back to the table to go to one place.

Destruction is the most formal treatment at present, but the cost is high. Some responsible food enterprises have special environmental protection incinerator equipment, which can burn expired products. This is also the most law-abiding behavior.

But for more enterprises, it is difficult for them to destroy or properly dispose of expired food. Abandoned food will pollute the environment if it is discarded as garbage at will. Due to the potential threat, expired food should be treated equally with abnormal waste such as medical waste. The asking price of garbage disposal enterprises is as high as 2000 tons. Many food enterprises say that they can't afford it, or those who can afford it give up because they think it will increase the cost. Go to the second place

Give it to employees, crush it for feed or throw it away as garbage.

Some enterprises will give expired food to employees as "welfare". Other companies are thinking about how to minimize losses. There are people in the market who specialize in purchasing expired food, such as cooked food or vegetables in supermarkets, and some will sell them to small restaurants. The so-called cooked food in a big supermarket is on the table of a small restaurant. Both of these behaviors inevitably lead to expired food being eaten by people.

Some enterprises will peel off the packaging bags of expired food, and the food will be broken and finally made into feed. In rural areas, it is also common for food operators to feed expired food to livestock. This was originally a good thing for environmental protection. However, some expired foods have actually become moldy after being made into feed, and as a result, animals will have an accident after eating them.

In addition, some expired foods are thrown away by enterprises at will, which actually pollutes the environment. Go to third place

After treatment and re-listing, the countryside has become the hardest hit.

Whether it is dyed steamed bread or the famous Guanshengyuan moon cake in the past, expired food is put on the market after plastic surgery. There are several ways to re-list expired foods:

1. Hide and replace the date directly. If the expired food looks basically unchanged, it will be put on the market by changing the packaging, production date label or code spraying. There are many examples Other companies are more lazy, tearing off the label of production date directly, so that consumers can't see the date.

2. Return to the market after "plastic surgery". Dyed steamed bread is such an "excellent" example.

Conclusion:

In rural areas, due to more lax supervision, there are many small workshops and small food processing factories, and people's awareness of food safety is not as strong as that of cities, which is also a place where expired food, junk food and other problem foods are rampant. Legislation

As soon as possible, a food safety legal system matching laws, regulations, rules, plans and standards will be formed, and units or individuals who violate the food safety law will be severely punished.

Legislative supervision

Imperfect laws and regulations, inactive supervision, loopholes in legal documents and low illegal cost.

Food safety law: there is no regulation on how to destroy it and who will supervise it.

Articles 28, 40 and 85 of the Food Safety Law all have legal provisions on expired food. However, apart from generally saying that it is forbidden to deal in foods that have exceeded the shelf life, it is necessary to clean them up in time, and it does not explain how to clean them up and how to supervise them.

The General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine informed that progress has been made, but the destruction regulations and supervision are still general and have no legal effect.

The General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine issued the Notice on Prohibiting the Use of Recycled Foods as Raw Materials in Food Production and Processing, which stipulated the scope of recycled foods, the establishment of a system for the destruction of recycled foods by food processing enterprises and related supervision. It is unclear who will destroy it and who will supervise it. The most important thing is that this notice is neither a law nor an administrative regulation. It is only universally binding and has no legal effect.

The State Administration for Industry and Commerce requires that the handling of expired food be recorded truthfully, but it is easy to get away with it.

The State Administration for Industry and Commerce issued the "Guiding Opinions on Standardizing the System of Food Claim and Ticket Claim and the System of Purchase Account", which requires that the handling of foods that have exceeded the shelf life, or are spoiled and substandard in quality should be truthfully recorded. But in fact, many production enterprises are responsible for the recycling of goods, and it is easy to destroy fiction, so it can't be found on the books.

Zhejiang local standard: expired food is not returned to the supplier, and the seller takes the initiative to destroy it.

This is a specification issued by Zhejiang Industrial and Commercial Bureau in 2007, which stipulates that expired food should not be returned to suppliers, and to some extent, it also makes it impossible for production enterprises to reprocess food, which is an improvement compared with previous regulations and documents. However, poor supervision will also lead to problems, which will be mentioned below.

In addition, the illegal cost of expired food is very low, often only tens of thousands of fines. However, in the United States, CVS, a health food store, sells expired foods and medicines. In New York State alone, it voluntarily admitted and fined $850,000. There are also examples of supermarkets being punished for selling expired food. For sellers, if they are considered to have sold expired goods, their reputation will be greatly affected, and the loss will outweigh the gain. Therefore, some people in China, USA will think that in big supermarkets, unopened food can be returned as long as you indicate that it has expired, and will not be sold again, because businesses are also afraid that customers really have problems, and that will be in big trouble.

Supervision: the department's power and responsibility are unclear, paying attention to the production link and ignoring the sales link.

The food safety problem "multi-dragon water control" leads to unclear rights and responsibilities and chaos. Health, quality inspection, industry and commerce, commerce, agriculture ... all departments can be managed, but the result of too many departments is "nobody is in charge" because these departments often have overlapping functions and disjointed links. Even if there is supervision, in general, all departments focus on the production link and invest little in the recall link.

manage

Establish and improve the food market certification system, formulate and improve the safety inspection supervision and spot check and market access system, and strengthen the construction of food safety functional management departments. The key point is to establish a food safety system that focuses on prevention, and explore ways to formulate market classification management.

standardization

Establish and improve the social credit system of food safety, establish food safety credit files by means of information technology, track and monitor food quality, safety and hygiene, gradually form a mechanism of survival of the fittest, and clean up those enterprises without safety guarantee from the market.

Make it public

Establish a food safety information publicity system, release it to the society regularly, let the people know which foods are safe and which foods are unsafe, and let the people eat clearly and safely.

Inflow into colleges and universities

Wenzhou workshops produce and sell nearly 200,000 dyed steamed buns, some of which flow into universities.

Wenzhou Industrial and Commercial Department recently investigated and dealt with a workshop for manufacturing and selling dyed steamed bread. It is reported that the workshop sold about 194800 dyed steamed buns from March 22 to April 14, 201,of which 1. 1000 were sold to a nearby university.

There is no corn, but thousands of "corn steamed buns" have been made. On 20th11April15th, Wenzhou Industrial and Commercial Department investigated and dealt with a steamed bread workshop. This workshop uses lemon yellow, saccharin sodium, corn essence and other additives to process corn steamed bread and white steamed bread.

The account book shows: 20 1 1 From March 22nd to April14th, they * * * sold 194800 buns. The case is still under investigation.

The workshop is located in Ganzhong Road, Ganao Village, Champion of Wenzhou City, and the conditions are very simple.

The steamer is placed on the ground outside the people's gate (in the tent), and there is a coal pile next to it. The floor of the workshop is covered with mud and moldy walls. And a bed for sleeping. This seems to be the staff lounge. The workshop has no hygiene license and business license.

Law enforcement officers did not find a corn at the scene, but the workshop sold "corn steamed bread".

There are 5 bottles of liquid and 3 packages of solid on the countertop of the workshop. The five bottles of liquid substances are "Lemon Yellow 60", "Sweet Corn Essence" and "Golden Corn Essence"; The three packages of solids are "saccharin sodium" and "red apple high activity dry yeast" respectively.

A female worker at the scene said that these were added directly during dough mixing.

Noodles made of "lemon yellow" and "corn essence" are used to make corn steamed bread; Make white steamed bread with flour without pigment, and add some saccharin and essence to increase sweetness and fragrance.

"As for how much to add, it mainly depends on the feel," said the female worker.

In the workshop, law enforcement officers found an account book, which recorded the sales of steamed bread in the workshop from March 22 to April11year.

According to the data in the account book, the daily turnover of this workshop is about 3000 yuan. From March 22nd of 20 1 1 to April 1 1, about 194800 steamed buns were sold in 24 days. Among them, 1. 1 ten thousand dyed steamed buns were sold to a university near the workshop.

Wenzhou Industrial and Commercial Department has banned this "black-hearted" steamed bread workshop and will inform the quality supervision department about the situation.

Chen Xianqun, director of Wenzhou Food Research Institute, said that lemon yellow pigment, corn essence and saccharin sodium are all additives allowed by the state, but the scope of use is limited, and not all foods are suitable.

"For example, it is forbidden to add pigments and saccharin to pasta products. In addition, corn flavor can be used in corn bread, but if corn flavor is directly used instead of corn, it is suspected of counterfeiting, which is illegal. " Chen Xianqun said.

It is understood that long-term intake of lemon yellow pigment, essence and saccharin will affect the normal development of teenagers. When a food production enterprise finds that the food it produces is unsafe, it shall immediately stop production. Yesterday, the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine (AQSIQ) solicited opinions on the newly revised Regulations on the Management of Food Recall, and the procedures for the recall of problematic foods were simplified compared with the regulations implemented in 2007. At the same time, if the recalled food is treated harmlessly, it can no longer be used for food production and sales. If the food recalled because the labels, signs or instructions do not meet the food safety standards and remedial measures are taken to ensure food safety, it may continue to be sold, but the remedial measures shall be made clear to consumers.

Recall without evaluation hearing

In August, 2007, the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine issued the Regulations on the Management of Food Recall, which covered the investigation and evaluation of food safety hazards, the implementation of voluntary food recall and ordered food recall, and the legal responsibility of food recall. * * * There are five chapters and 45 articles. Yesterday's draft for comments was first of all "slimmed down" in length, with no chapters and only 27 articles.

In these short twenty-seven articles, the recall procedure has undergone great changes. The exposure draft stipulates that food production enterprises should stop production immediately if they find that the food they produce is unsafe.

However, in the old regulations implemented in 2007, food safety hazards investigation and food safety hazards evaluation should be conducted to determine whether food is unsafe. If the results of food safety hazards investigation and food safety hazards evaluation of food producers are inconsistent with the results of the expert committee, it is even necessary to deal with them through hearing. Finally, only after investigation and evaluation of food safety hazards, it is confirmed that unsafe food is caused by production reasons, and the recall level should be determined and implemented.

The new regulations make no mention of the exchange statement.

This exposure draft not only further simplifies the procedure of food recall, but also reveals the taste of tightening in the way of recall.

In 2007, the regulation was defined as: "Recall refers to the food producer's timely elimination or reduction of food safety hazards's activities by exchanging goods, returning goods, supplementing or modifying the consumption instructions for a certain batch or category of unsafe food produced by him according to the prescribed procedures."

In the draft for comments, the way of "exchanging goods, returning goods, supplementing or modifying consumer instructions" is tightened to "returning goods or modifying signs".

In addition, in the definition of unsafe food, the exposure draft not only retains "food that induces food pollution, food-borne diseases or causes harm or even death to human health; Foods that may cause food pollution, food-borne diseases or endanger human health. A "food that does not meet food safety standards" has also been added.

Submit the recall plan in three days.

The recall grading system implemented in the 2007 edition of the Regulations is also missing in the draft for comments.

According to the severity of food safety hazards, the original regulations divided the food recall level into three levels. For example, the "first-class recall" is the most severe, that is, the recall of unsafe food that has caused or may cause serious harm to human health or even death, or has a wide circulation and great social impact. At the same time, the implementation of each recall has different requirements.

The new regulations no longer classify recalls. The exposure draft unified the time for submitting the recall plan to three days. The exposure draft said: "Submit the food recall plan to the local quality supervision department within three days, and take necessary measures to inform the relevant producers, operators and consumers of the food to be recalled, and take effective measures such as returning the sold food to recall it."

This is equivalent to the first-class recall of the 2007 edition.

Recall should be raised to law

The "Regulations on the Management of Food Recall" for this consultation is undoubtedly an initiative for the convergence of the Food Safety Law.

At this time, the 2007 edition of the Regulations on the Management of Food Recall has been implemented for nearly four years, and the Food Safety Law has also been implemented for nearly two years. Qiu said that as a departmental regulation, the Regulations on the Management of Food Recall is obviously limited, and the issue of food recall should be raised to the level of the State Council regulations and even laws. In that case, the punishment and measures will be greater and the deterrent will be weaker.

feedback

The publicity of the exposure draft welcomes all relevant units or individuals to put forward amendments, and feedback them to the AQSIQ before May 3 1.