Demands of food safety as incomes grow

                                               

A Taiwanese company is embroiled in a 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.

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.

“I’ve been working in the industry for the past 25 years, and every few years, there’s something major,” said Mr.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.”

                                       

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.

“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. Tourism and trade, and can result in economic losses, he added.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.

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. “Strong control at the border is not good enough,” Palit said. Government policymakers must also update food-safety policies, experts said.