Draft food safety law tightens scrutiny of small producers, stalls

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China's small food factories, once outside the regulatory system, might be subject to specific local controls as a draft law on food safety has urged local legislatures to draw up factory safety measures.
"Provincial legislatures must take specific measures to manage the work of small food workshops and vendor stands," says the draft law.
Many small food plants and outlets are popular in tourist regions because they offer a cheap taste of local cuisine. However, food safety problems are frequent among such establishments, which don't require licenses and often lack management oversight.
"Food problems occur frequently in small companies and workshops below the county level. However, it is not practical to impose the [national] approval system on all of them, nor is it appropriate to let them be," the Law Committee of the National People's Congress (NPC) said in a report at the fourth session of the 11th NPC Standing Committee.
"The country has many small workshops and private stands. Most cannot reach the official standards, and that situation will persist in the short term," said the committee of education, science, culture and health under the NPC.
The committee advised local legislatures, which know local conditions better, to impose specific measures to guarantee food safety, while ensuring employment and social stability.
An article in the previous draft stated that "food for export must meet the standards of importing countries or regions", but, some argued, the specific rules should be made by importing countries in accordance with international conventions and China should not mention them in its own law.
It was changed to "food for export must be transferred abroad with certificates issued by the country's entry-exit inspection and quarantine organs."
The draft also rules out all articles regarding a supervision code system.
Many experts and companies thought the code system was not difficult enough to prevent faking, and the system needed more personnel, equipment and investment from food companies while the bar code system was already widely adopted.
One supervision code matches one product. With the code, supervising organizations can track the product during its entire process of manufacture, distribution and sale, to enable quality evaluation and recall.
The draft law, submitted to China's top legislature for a second reading on Monday, also nails down specific mechanisms for food safety functions to avoid overlapping monitoring and inefficiency.
The health authority under the State Council is responsible for general food safety coordination, such as evaluating risks, setting safety standards, releasing information and checking serious food safety cases.
Meanwhile, local governments at or above county level are responsible for organizing regional food management, coping with emergencies and assessing the work of local food safety supervising organizations, said the draft.
Another highlight is the "social responsibility" of food producers and marketers.
"Food safety is directly related to public health and safety," said the report. "Food makers should not only act according to law but also undertake social responsibilities."
The previous draft, which focused on government supervision and administrative punishment, failed to address the "civil liability" of those making and selling food, the committee said.
The current version stipulates that producers and marketers should ensure food safety, accept public supervision and shoulder social responsibility.
The draft law, covering food safety evaluation, monitoring, recalls and information release, laid out penalties from fines to life in prison for the makers of substandard food.
The changes were made after more than 10,000 submissions from the public were received from April 20 to May 20.