Expired expirations: Beijing food company prints false labels
Staff Reporter 2012-12-28 08:49
Workers at a food processing factory in Zhengzhou, Henan province. (Photo/Xinhua)
A food and beverage processing company in Beijing has been nabbed for printing false production dates that fell beyond the actual date of the product's manufacture, the Chinese-language Beijing News reported on Dec. 27. The postponed dates extend the shelf life of the products beyond their actual date of expiration, a recipe for bad food.
According to an employee of Beijing Xibaolu Beverage Obligate, the products are printed with an "extended date" because the end of the year is a peak season for sales and the factory will not be able to process enough to meet demand in the event of a shortage. To cope with the high demand, the company increases production and stores the food for later use, eventually slapping an updated production date on the already expiring food.
China's laws on food labeling forbids false or manipulated production dates. Violators could be fined between 500 yuan and 10,000 yuan (US$80-$1,600).
The Beijing News sent two undercover reporters to be hired as packaging staff on Dec. 21. The 166,719 cans of walnut products they produced that day were tagged with a Jan. 1 or 2 date of production, at least 13 days in the future.
An employee in the factory said that the company is the third company he has worked for to resort to the time-bending tactic. Another said that all the products produced since Dec. 19 were printed with a date in 2013, and that it is very easy to change the date on the printing machine.
A third worker at the factory said that the validity of each product is 18 months, and if one consumes a product which is about to expire, it will already have expired.
