System announced for tracking food quality

By 2010, all the city's major agriculture products will be included in a source-tracing system to ensure their quality. The system will enable a quality watchdog to trace each product back to its producer, agriculture commission officials said yesterday.

Detailed information will be included in the system such as the place and the time the food is grown, what kind of fertilizer was used and when it was applied, according to Sun Lei, director of the Shanghai Agriculture Commission.

A source-tracing system for pork is already up and running. A milk source-tracing system is under development, officials said.

"This year's local food safety work is in good order and under fine control," said Xie Minqiang, vice director of the Shanghai Food and Drug Administration Bureau. "We will keep food quality under strict supervision."

He said collective food poisoning would hit less than six in every 100,000 people for the third consecutive year. From January to August, the bureau sampled 40,000 food products. Ninety-four percent passed quality tests, up 2.84 percent on the same period last year.

He said local food authorities had successfully ensured the safety of food during the Beijing Olympic Games and responded quickly to the melamine scandal.

Shanghai Bureau of Quality and Technical Supervision has sent supervisors to 17 dairy-goods makers, made 809 inspections of manufactures using dairy products and checked 10,718 batches of dairy products and raw milk.

The quality watchdog said all 65,690 tons of dairy products produced by local dairy-food makers after September 17 were within safe melamine limits.

The quality supervision bureau has also organized 82 training sessions about food safety for 8,628 migrant workers involved in food manufacture.

It has set up 300 machines in supermarkets this year that enable consumers to check the Quality Standards Certification of products on sale and report unlicensed products.

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