China’s State Food & Drug Administration (SFDA) has turned its attention to online seafood sales with a public dressing down for a platform selling squid with what the SFDA claims was over 100 times the legal limits of bacteria.
Jin Hua Ling Du Foodstuffs Co. was selling the squid on the Kou Kou Fu flagship store on Suning.com, a major e-commerce website run by China’s biggest electronics retailer. The Kou Kou Fu store appears to be offline at present.
As the lead agency in enforcing China’s food safety law, the FDA has in the past year increased its checks of supermarkets and restaurants. Last November, supermarkets in Beijing appeared to have cleared out their water tanks after a tip-off of an imminent inspection of retail fish tanks by the local FDA, which enforces China’s food safety laws.
A story in respected business magazine Caixin suggested that someone from within the SFDA had leaked news of upcoming inspections to retailers. But retail outlets visited by SeafoodSource in recent months has suggested that retailers are increasingly nervous about stocking domestic Chinese seafood, which may have excessive traces of antibiotics. FDA inspections have become “very strict,” according to a floor manager at a giant WalMart outlet in the Chaoyang district of Beijing, interviewed by SeafoodSource in November. This, he added, is making the supermarket nervous about seafood suppliers.
