Food industry to seek city asistance with refrigeration

2006-05-07 From Shanghai Daily

Food industry officials are calling on the ity to put up the money to help develop a refrigerated storage and transport system, as a large amount of meat and dairy products in the city are sold unrefrigerated at wet markets.

The proposal was put forward at the 2006 Shanghai Food Logistics and Cold Chain Technology Development Forum, which wa hosted by Shanghai Fisheries University yesterday.

"People in the ountry have witnessed a series of food safety scandals in reent years, but in fact most of these problems should be attributed to food stuff decay in inappropriate logistics process," said Ma Li, assistant director of the Shanghai Food Association.

The group would like to see the government introduce legislation requiring perishable foods to be kept at a certain temperature. Current Food and Drug Administration rules are too vague, according to the association, as they only state that food must be kept fresh.

Currently, about 80 percent of meat, seafood, milk and tofu sold in the city is shipped to wet markets in unrefrigerated trucks.

Only about 20 percent of food delivery vehicles used in the city are refrigerated. Shanghai Fisheries University is working on developing China's first refrigerated truck, as the country currently has to import all such vehicles. The university isn't ready to put the trucks into use yet, and hasn't found a manufacturing partner.

The number of refrigerated storage facilities per capita in the city accounts for only 5 percent of the number in developed Western countries, acording to Dai Weiming, manger of Shanghai Xintiantian Dazhong Cold Logistics Co Ltd.

Qiu Jiachang, assistant secretary of the Shanghai Refrigeration Association, said the country loses 75 billion yuan (US$9.26 billion) a year from food that goes bad during transport.

"The city should prevent possible food safety sccidents by working out regulations and standards to promote cold-chain food logistics," Ma said. He couldn't say, however, how much money the government would need to spend to develop a proper food storage and transport system in Shanghai.