"Supermarket" sells expired cooked food again

Recently, some readers reported to this newspaper that in a “supermarket” located in Tiantongyuan, Changping District, Beijing, the expired food in the deli area was replaced by employees and sold again. The scene confirmed by the reporter’s on-site visit and the video provided by the insider did exist. The food that was replaced included cooked food such as “Tianfu” sauce duck. In this regard, supermarkets and Tianfu manufacturers have expressed ignorance.

Before opening the door to replace packaging readers Liu Tao (a pseudonym) said that the supermarket is the supermarket Tiantongyuan West District shop, located in the Tiantongyuan Community, Changping District, Tiantong Weihuo market west side. He had worked at the supermarket before, so it was very clear that the supermarket staff had changed the cooked food packaging.

“Every day at around 7 o'clock in the morning, deli employees start packing the expired foods at work.” Liu Tao said that supermarkets are open every day around 9 am, so these operations must be completed before supermarkets are opened. All of these cooked foods that have been replaced are boxed, and a label is attached to the cling film. The shelf life is above. The shelf life on the label is clearly indicated and the shelf life is one day. Those manufacturers directly packaged vacuum-packed foods are no problem, and their shelf life is longer. "In this supermarket, as long as it is a plastic bottom box and plastic wrap, it has been replaced."

Liu Tao said that at around 8pm every night, the food in the supermarket deli areas could not be sold, and a large number of remaining expired foods would be taken up by employees in the deli area and wait until the next day to replace the packaging.

After dismantling the packaging and smelling, Liu Tao provided two video materials to the reporter of the Jinghua Times, which were the process of secretly changing the packaging of the supermarket employee.

In the video, a female employee dressed in green overalls was lying on the floor of a depot workplace. He removed the box of cooked food on the floor and wrapped it in plastic wrap. He placed it aside. In the meantime, the plastic wrap of a box was just torn off. As the chicken meat inside was overweight and fell to the ground, the female employee picked up the chicken immediately and placed it in the box again. The female employee was extremely skilled in tearing the plastic wrap. Every time she tore away a box of wrapped plastic wrap, she had to smell the box before her nose and ensure that she had no odor before she would set aside. In the 48-second part of the video, when the female employee was about to tear down a box of buttered beef, he suddenly peeked out to the cooked food room. After discovering no one, he quickly took out two pieces of meat and put it into his mouth. Throughout the process of changing the packaging, the female employee did not wear gloves and kept operating barefoot.

A few minutes later, the female employee lumped together the cooked food boxes on the ground, moved them to the kitchen, re-wrapped the plastic wrap with the wrapping machine, and then replaced the production date label of the day.

Marked cooked food is reproduced at 8pm on October 24th. The reporter went to the supermarket to send a supermarket in the Tiantongyuan West District store and walked into the doorway, which was the delicate food area mentioned by Liu Tao. Outside the deli area, there is a refrigerated cabinet with a length of about 10 meters. Inside, there are various kinds of cooked food products. The manufacturers and brands are different, some are vacuum-packed, and there are also plastic wrap packages mentioned in the previous article. The reporter saw that the vacuum packaging has a longer shelf life and is directly packaged by the manufacturer. However, on the cooked food wrapped in plastic wrap, there is only one small label. The above labeling indicates that the packaging date is October 24 and the shelf life is October 24.

Subsequently, the reporter randomly picked up 5 boxes of different varieties and different brands of cooked food, respectively, with a black marker at the bottom of the box to make a mark, each box has a point of a larger black spot. As the supermarket approached, the reporter returned 5 boxes of cooked food to the freezer.

At 10 o'clock on the morning of October 25th, the reporter went to the supermarket again and went directly to the refrigerated cabinet in the deli area to find out if there was a cooked food box that had been marked last night. In less than a minute, the reporter found a box of cooked food labeled last night. The label was named "Tianfu No. 2 Sauce Duck". The packaging date and warranty period have been changed to October 25. The reporter found that on the right side of the deli area, there is a "Taifu No." plaque. After the female workers said that they had not returned to the factory, the reporter asked the female employees in the deli area how many cooked foods a day would be sold. The female employee claimed that these cooked foods were all imported from manufacturers. If they were not sold, they would be returned to the factory and processed by the manufacturers. "Every day we come in the whole box of new goods. If we can't sell it, we will return with the bottom box."

When asked if the “Tianfu” food was purchased from a regular factory, the female employee pointed to a sign on the side of the refrigerator and said, “Rest assured, it can't be fake.” The reporter observed that the brand says: “The name of the product is: Tianfu cooked food series, production date and shelf life for the day, preservation conditions for the cryogenic preservation, the supplier name is Beijing Tianfu Food Co., Ltd., supplier address is the Airport Industrial Zone, Shunyi District.”

The day before yesterday afternoon, the staff of the supermarket marketing department in the supermarket of the Tiantianyuan in the supermarket said that the package for replacing expired food was banned in supermarkets, but refused to receive further interviews with reporters. Regarding whether or not the company's food packaging was changed, the staff of Beijing Tianfu Food Co., Ltd. said that they did not know about this issue, nor did they respond to questions such as whether or not the food could not be returned to the factory.

The process of returning to the factory is difficult to supervise Mr. Dong Jinshi, executive vice president and secretary general of the International Food Packaging Association, said in an interview with this reporter that according to requirements, these expired, unsold cooked foods should be returned to the factory, but the current return process cannot be completed. Under the supervision of the quality supervision department, it is necessary to rely on the company's own ethical guidelines. Now many dealers feel that these foods have no problems and they continue to trade labels for sale. This kind of behavior harms the legitimate rights and interests of consumers. Once the food itself has problems, it will also harm consumers' health.

"This kind of reseller's behavior of changing packaging does not rule out the possibility of the company and the distributor reaching a tacit agreement." Mr Tung said that many stalls in supermarkets are now contracted by small distributors. To reduce the trouble, they secretly replace the packaging by themselves. . If there is a phenomenon that cannot be sold or recalled every day, suppliers (companies) will be reluctant to supply them. Only by ensuring sufficient sales can they ensure that they do not “lose orders”. Of course, the supplier will also use the recall amount to evaluate the dealership. Although the system allows the return, if the return amount is too much, it means the sales are unstable.

Mr. Dong called on the relevant departments to increase the supervision of circulation, such as whether the label has been replaced, whether the food has expired, and so on. In addition, food companies must also have their own brand awareness. From their point of view, increasing the supervision of lower-level distributors cannot rely on government supervision alone.