The constant stream of food safety scandals has sparked complaints from members of the public that they do not know what to eat anymore as well as criticism that the government does not understand what is going on and does not have a clue how to resolve it.
Mid and downstream food-related businesses are not doing much better. Faced with confusing instructions that they remove their products from the shelves and irrational demands from some consumers, all they can do is throw up their hands and say: “I am also a victim.”
Government officials think that stiff sentences are necessary and have increased fines, but there is no law regulating business conscience. Everyone who plays a part in the food supply chain — from the farm to the dinner table — is responsible for ensuring product safety.
Agriculture is our main food source, and food processing was invented to deal with excessive produce or inferior products. The need to extend the time that a product could be preserved and to improve its taste and flavor led to the invention of various food additives. To make things more convenient for consumers, instant food became universal, and that led to the issue of food packaging safety.
With the innovation of distribution channels, supermarkets and wholesalers brought shopping convenience, but they depend on bulk purchases to bring down costs. When retailing developed into an oligopoly, suppliers were forced to continuously push down prices to ensure products made it onto the store shelves.
If domestic raw materials are expensive, food manufacturers procure their products abroad, and industrial-grade materials are substituted for food-grade ones to lower import costs. The production of low-profit products is outsourced, so even if the brand and packaging of similar products may differ, they may have been produced by the same manufacturer. If the raw materials at one of these manufacturers is problematic, then every company that sources from that manufacturer suffers.
Deconstructing the food product supply chain reveals why the food safety problem is neverending. If the fundamental problem cannot be resolved, these problems will keep on recurring.
The government says that through source management, it will be possible to carry out inspections of pesticide residues and heavy metals in domestic agricultural products. However, it is more difficult to conduct border controls of foreign agricultural products, especially since the importer is responsible for taking and testing samples rather than verifying that the sample is taken from the imported product.
The latest scandal involving tea chain Stornaway (英國藍) will not be the only one.
Distributors should be responsible for guaranteeing product quality, but the market oligopoly might have created an unfair situation for suppliers. This is something the government should include in the scope of food safety management so that businesses do not continue to use industrial-grade raw materials just so that they can remain in business.
Consumers must not only be aware of the concept of consumer protection, they must also adopt consumer protection habits. For example, there are regulations on what a product label should include, and if consumers do not read it carefully, they will lose the opportunity to monitor manufacturers. Product prices include manufacturing costs and profits, so considering the price of a product can also help minimize the risk of eating substandard products.
Businesses must take corporate social responsibility seriously. A manufacturer of substandard products will not be able to stop losses by simply bowing and apologizing; they also put their employees’ jobs at risk — and perhaps the nation’s global reputation.
The most severely criticized government officials must review food product legislation — such as the national Chinese National Standards — to ascertain whether they are up to date or if they are mutually contradictory, as well as differences between domestic and international residue limits.
Even more important, when a problem arises, they should not act as if it is not their problem and they do not care or tell people to buy imported products. They should put their nose to the grindstone and gain a good understanding of the full food product supply chain and listen to the opinions of experts. Food safety is not an insolvable problem.
Lei Li-fen is a professor in National Taiwan University’s agricultural economics department.
Translated by Perry Svensson
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