Food Safety Accident Repeatedly Expanded by Foreign Inspection Giants

While Taiwan’s food industry is grappling with plasticizers, mainland companies that have not yet exposed similar problems have not seen fires across the shore. Some food companies are testing third-party testing organizations to determine whether they have manufactured plasticizers. On the other hand, the repeated food safety accidents have also targeted the major Chinese commercial giants that provide testing.

The crisis in Taiwan has created business opportunities for some testing agencies in the mainland. The world’s leading standard-skills service company (SGS) in testing, testing, etc. has recently opened a plasticizer testing project in Shanghai. The salesman told the reporter that SGS had newly set up the above-mentioned testing service on May 26th. Later, he received a lot of consultation calls. At the same time, he also helped a number of companies to handle the inspection procedures.

The products sent for testing included beverages, fruit juices, and chocolate powder. According to the above-mentioned salesman, similar tests of this type each cost only five or six hundred yuan, but now plasticizers need to cost 1,500 yuan. Previously, SGS did not provide this test. After the original equipment was adjusted, it was not too difficult to detect technically. It was only necessary to increase the detection accuracy.

Although government-inspection agencies have the ability to detect these toxic substances, many companies are willing to send products to third-party testing agencies first, resulting in confidentiality. Usually the test results can be quickly detected by the equipment, but it takes 7 days to accept a business from a business to provide a test report. At present, no results have been released.

For food companies, this may mean that the cost of detection will increase, but the repeated food safety accidents will also allow the food industry's testing organizations to expand rapidly. Overseas food inspection giants are also planning to enter the Chinese market. On May 31, 3M China Co., Ltd. held a contract and unveiling ceremony for the “3M Food Safety Cooperation Laboratory” in Qingdao with the Shandong Entry-Exit Inspection and Quarantine Bureau's Food and Agricultural Products Inspection Center, and entered the Chinese food safety inspection market.

Singer, the general manager of the Asure Quality Group, which almost monopolized New Zealand's national food inspection market, also told reporters that their domestic market is becoming saturated and they are currently expanding their business into the Asia Pacific region, especially setting up wholly-owned companies and establishing laboratories in China. Their business scale is not large in the global inspection industry, but they can be top-notch in the field of food inspection. They are preparing to enter the Chinese market from the testing of the dairy industry.

In Singh's view, most emerging markets such as China and India will face the test of food safety in the late industrialization period. This is a good time for them to enter. In addition to testing services, related training and equipment were also included in Asure Quality's entry into the Chinese market. Singh said: “The current annual turnover of the group is S$140 million (approximately RMB 740 million), but we expect that at 5 After the year, China's business will be able to reach 50 million to 100 million Singapore dollars."