China shuts 180 plants for using toxins in food 27.6.07 | 10:26 By TheMarker

The world has become worried about Chinese quality control and evidently, Beijing has its concerns too. China has closed 180 food factories after inspectors found industrial chemicals in products from candy to seafood, the China Daily reported today.

Nor did food manufacturers cavil at recycling old food, the paper says.

One toxin detected in the food products - intended for the Chinese market - was formaldehyde, famously used to preserve tissue, not nourish it, the China Daily reports.

Government inspectors also found prohibited dyes and industrial wax in candy, pickles, snacks and seafood, the paper said. Nor were a few miscreants at work, the administration admitted in a sharp reversal from its previous position that there were a few crooks, but the general industry was law-abiding.

Toxins have now been found in Chinese exports from toothpaste to dried fruit. Wheat and rice gluten used by the pet food industry was found to be spiked with the coal-production byproduct melamine, causing an unknown number of pet deaths in North America.

Melamine was used to falsely boost the readings of protein in the pet foods. It did achieve that aim, but also caused fatal kidney failure in an unknown number of cats and some dogs as well.

Later melamine, apparently originating in feed in which Chinese raw materials had been used, was found in pigs and chickens that had reached the human food chain. American officials hastened to postulate that the concentrations of the toxin on the carnivorous consumer's plate were apparently too low to cause them any harm.

Other products turned away by U.S. inspectors include toxic monkfish, frozen eel and juice made with unsafe color additives, AP adds.

Beijing said that most of the 180 plants it targeted were tiny outfits with few employees. But then China Daily put things into proportion when it reported that three-quarters of China's roughly 1 million food are small.

Striving to repair its tattered image, China's State Administration for Industry and Commerce claimed to have closed 152,000 unlicensed food manufacturers and retailers last year for making fake and low-quality products, AP reports.

Food isn't the only problem suffering from quality control in China, it would seem. Certain Chinese tires for trucks imported to the U.S. were found to lack gum strips that keep the rubber intact.

TheMarker 27-6-2007
Collected by Antoni P. Uni – Thailand, 23-8-2007