Qualified rate of livestock products at 99% for 5 consecutive years; batches of non-compliant imported food on the rise

Recently, the China Food Safety Public Opinion Research Center and the Jiangsu Provincial Food Safety Research Base jointly released the "China Food Safety Development Report (2014)." The "Report" shows that although a series of food safety incidents have still occurred in China in recent years, “overall stable and improving” is the fundamental state of China's food safety situation.

Qualified rate for pesticide residues in vegetables and fruits exceeds 96%

Monitoring and spot-check results show that in 2013, the quality and safety level of China's main edible agricultural products generally showed a trend of steady improvement, and the quality and safety of residents' main edible agricultural products was well safeguarded. Among these, in 2013, routine monitoring results for pesticide residues such as methamidophos and dimethoate in vegetables showed a qualified detection rate of 96.6%. Since 2008, it has remained at a high level above 96% for 6 consecutive years. Test results for pesticide residues such as methamidophos and dimethoate in fruits showed a qualified detection rate of 96.8%, down 0.3 percentage points from 2012, and down 1.2 percentage points from 2009, when fruits were first included in routine monitoring. Overall, the overall qualified rate of fruit quality in China has remained at a high level above 96%.

⟦NL> In terms of livestock products, in 2013 the Ministry of Agriculture's monitoring results for “lean meat powder” and veterinary drug residues such as sulfonamides in livestock products in 153 large and medium-sized cities across 31 provinces (regions) showed that the overall qualified rate for livestock product quality and safety was 99.7%, unchanged from 2012. Since 2009, the qualified rate for livestock product quality and safety has remained at a high level of 99% for 5 consecutive years, and has been stable with a slight rise.

Non-compliant batches of imported food on the rise

Since the 1990s, the development of China's food import trade has shown the basic characteristics of continuously expanding total volume, gradually optimizing structure, and maintaining a relatively stable market structure, and it has played an increasingly important role in regulating domestic food supply and demand and meeting the diversity of the food market. In 2013, China's total imported food trade reached a historic high of US$57.086 billion, an increase of 7.90% over 2012, continuing to achieve new growth on a high base. Among imported products, the import trade value of three major categories - vegetable oils, grains and their products, and vegetables and fruits - accounted for nearly half.

However, it should still be noted that the batches and quantities of non-compliant imported food have generally shown an upward trend. In 2009, the number of non-compliant batches of imported food in China was 1,543 batches; in 2010 and 2011 it increased to 1,753 batches and 1,818 batches respectively; and in 2012 the number of non-compliant batches reached a peak in recent years at 2,499 batches. In 2013, a total of 2,164 batches of non-compliant imported food were refused entry for various reasons, a fairly obvious decrease compared with 2012; in 2013, the top 10 sources of imported non-compliant food batches in China were Taiwan, China, France, the United States, Malaysia, Germany, Thailand, Italy, South Korea, New Zealand, and Spain.

In addition, researchers selected 2,139 urban consumers in 58 cities (including county-level cities) across 10 provinces (regions) nationwide, as well as 2,119 rural consumers in 165 rural administrative villages under the jurisdiction of these cities, for a survey. The results showed that supermarkets had the highest level of consumer confidence as food purchasing venues, while small shops and roadside mobile vendors became the food purchasing venues that consumers trusted least.

The report also shows that the awareness of rights protection among urban and rural consumers has continued to increase. In 2013, among domestic consumers' complaints about product quality, the top 5 products by complaint volume were, in order, food, furniture, cars, mobile phones, and televisions. Food ranked first in complaint volume among all commodities, with problems concentrated in food spoiling within the shelf life, foreign objects in beverages, dairy product quality problems, non-compliant food additives, unclear production date labeling, and meat products not matching their names.