Every morning, food samples are laid out on a long table at a pristine laboratory run by a German firm in Singapore, but they are not meant for chefs or gourmets.
Testing company TUV SUD is watching out for contaminants that could harm consumers in Singapore and other parts of Asia, a region recently rocked by food-safety scandals.
A Taiwanese company is embroiled in a widening scare after it was found selling hundreds of tonnes of tainted lard oil to food makers, bakeries and restaurants, forcing the recall of cakes, bread, instant noodles, cookies, dumplings and other food items at home and in Hong Kong.
Sales of US fast food giant McDonald’s in China were hammered this year following news reports alleging that a supplier mixed expired meat with fresh deliveries.
On a recent visit by reporters to the TUV SUD lab in Singapore, chemists in white coats carried out a battery of tests on milk powder from the Philippines, seafood from Indonesia, Vietnam and Malaysia, and locally processed food for consumption in the city-state, as well as other Asian countries.
“I’ve been working in the industry for the past 25 years, and every few years, there’s something major,” said Chong Kok Yong, a vice president for food safety at TUV SUD. “It’s an ongoing challenge because there are parties who want to make more from less, so they are always trying to make poor-quality food look good. So there’s always temptation for them to do something illegal.”
Changing consumption patterns driven by Asia’s expanding middle class, the globalization of the food chain and the transfer of new diseases from animals to humans have made it more complicated to combat the risks, experts said.
Institute for Global Environmental Strategies senior policy researcher Sivapuram V.R.K. Prabhakar said many countries “still handle the issue by handing over bits and pieces of the food safety puzzle to various ministries and agencies without much coordination and collaboration.”
In 2008, China’s dairy industry was shaken by revelations that melamine was added to powdered milk to make it appear higher in protein content, killing six and leaving an estimated 300,000 babies ill, while causing global recalls of items containing Chinese dairy.
Tests done at TUV SUD’s Singapore facility at that time showed some samples of raw ingredients having 10,000 times more melamine — a white chemical used in plastics, adhesives, countertops, dishware and whiteboards — than the tolerable limit.
In 2011, Singapore suspended the importation of three Taiwanese brands of juice used in bubble tea after they were found to contain diethylhexyl phthalate, a chemical commonly used in plastic manufacturing.
The intensification of food production has also given rise to concerns over the excessive and improper use of pesticides in crops and antibiotics in animals.
India uses less pesticides per hectare than Taiwan and Japan, but still reports a bigger number of pesticide residue cases, due mainly to improper application and the type of chemicals used, a study cowritten by Prabhakar said.
“Unsafe food causes a great number of acute and lifelong diseases, from diarrhea to various forms of cancer, with more than 200 diseases spread through contaminated food,” UN Asia-Pacific Food and Agriculture Organization director Hiroyuki Konuma said.
Unsafe food can also have adverse effects on productivity, tourism and trade, and can result in economic losses, he added.
The infrastructure needed to ensure food safety throughout the production chain — such as refrigerated storage facilities — is lacking, and laws on food safety are not keeping pace with trends, sources said.
TUV SUD Global Product Services chief executive Ishan Palit said most checks are being done at the tail end of the chain, although more countries are hiring third-party firms to conduct tests at source.
“You don’t eliminate the risk, but you reduce the risk of destruction of full batches when they come in,” he said.
“Strong control at the border is not good enough,” Palit said.
Government policymakers must also update food-safety policies, experts said.
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