Ancillary#9

My issue concerns the double standards for food safety regulation that China adopts for its domestic productions and foreign exports. Last week, the World Consumer Rights Day gala in China revealed incidents of consumer rights violations in a variety of industries, including food safety. In particular, a video of a company named Hunan Chaqi Vegetable Co Ltd’s production process for pickled cabbage went viral on social media platforms. In the video, workers were stepping on the pickled cabbage, some wearing slippers and others barefoot, to marinate and flavor the cabbage. Workers were smoking during this production stage, and the camera even captured one of the workers throwing his cigarette stub into the cabbage. Most significantly, the media also unveiled that the pickled cabbage produced for domestic sales were regulated under a drastically different system from that for export sales. The exported cabbages are fermented in its own fermentation tank and later cleanly processed and free of impurities, while the ones sold to Chinese citizens are fermented outdoors in a pit with workers stumping on them bare feet.

I am interested in this issue because food safety concerns every ordinary citizen and this problematic pickled cabbage was consumed by millions of people, including myself, as the company is in partnership with one of China’s most favored instant noodle production business. As far as I know, the majority of food companies in China employ two different sets of systems for food that will be exported and food that will be sold domestically. This also applies to other industries like cars, clothes, and toys; the quality for exported commodities can be higher than that for domestic commodities. For the same thing, for example, the EU’s quality standards are generally stricter than China’s. The reason lies under the difference in food safety regulations in China and in other countries. For the same problem, the difference between domestic and foreign penalty can differ as large as a hundred times. The punishment and fines in China are too low so that businesses are willing to take the risk and maximize their profits.

To look deeper into this issue, I will do research on the reason behind such a huge difference in the food safety regulations and what might be the national and global solution to help such an issue that concerns the health of millions of people.