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Chinese authorities have launched an investigation into the shipment of edible oil after local media reports that a fuel tanker had been used to transport unwashed edible oil, triggering the country’s latest food safety scandal.
Undercover video released by state media Beijing News last week showed scores of fuel tankers transporting edible oil, with one driver saying it was an “open secret” in the industry that truckers don’t clean their tanks when transporting toxic and edible liquids.
“We carry sugar, honey, molasses, cooking oil, car lubricants,” another driver said in the video. “We carry everything.” A third truck driver said he usually doesn’t pay the 400 to 500 yuan ($55 to $69) to wash his truck’s tank before unloading cargo.
China’s State Council, the country’s cabinet, announced a joint multi-agency investigation led by the Food Safety Commission this week to “thoroughly investigate issues related to the transportation of edible oil by tanker” and “severely punish” companies and individuals found to have violated the law, according to state media.
The report, which allegedly implicated Chinese state-owned food company Sinograin, sparked a public backlash, with social media users and local media exposing allegations of previous tanker contamination, including one individual who used open-source data to track a suspect tanker that was transporting oil to a facility belonging to China’s largest edible oil marketer, Yihai Kerry Arawana.
Sinograin said in a statement that it would launch “thorough special inspections” across all its operations and blacklist any shipping companies found to be violating regulations. Yihai Kerry said it had a comprehensive food safety system in place and an internal investigation found that all tankers supplying its facilities “underwent rigorous verification and inspection procedures.”
The revelation of unsanitary transportation practices is reminiscent of the 2011 food safety scandal, when companies and individuals were found to be collecting cooking oil from roadside gutters to recycle and resell it.
China has long been plagued by food and drug safety scandals, and regulators have turned a blind eye to companies cutting costs. In 2007, China executed a former head of its food and drug regulator for taking bribes to approve a drug that was later found to have quality problems that likely led to at least five deaths.
In 2008, more than 300,000 infants became ill and at least six died after eating formula contaminated with the toxic chemical melamine.
In 2014, McDonald’s and KFC suppliers were found to have supplied expired meat to outlets in Shanghai, and employees at a Beijing subway franchise were found to have falsified food expiry dates.
In 2018, vaccine manufacturers were fined more than $1.3 billion for distributing hundreds of thousands of doses of defective vaccines to children.
A series of safety failures have led to widespread distrust of domestically produced milk powder and other foods and medicines, leading many Chinese consumers to favor more expensive imports despite President Xi Jinping’s emphasis on the importance of the country’s food security.
Sales of imported cooking oils have surged on Chinese e-commerce platforms this week, but sales of the Sinograin brand have been removed.
“We sold out what would normally take a month in just a few days,” one imported edible oil distributor told Chinese media.
