New food safety guidelines push coordination between ministries

Beijing is taking aim at the bureaucratic silos that threaten food safety.

On Wednesday, the Party Central Committee and State Council jointly issued guidelines on strengthening food safety supervision along the entire supply chain.

The guidelines focus on a persistent source of food safety failures – namely, supply chain links that fall into regulatory grey areas between ministries and agencies.

Specifically, the guidelines call for:

• "Establishing and improving coordinated supervision mechanisms and strengthening joint supervision of entire [food supply] chains."

That includes:

• Unprocessed agricultural products, where the ag ministry (MARA) and the market regulator (SAMR) both have a role to play
• Specialty foods like infant formula, where SAMR needs to coordinate with the health product regulator (NHC)
• E-commerce grocery and online food delivery, where MARA, SAMR, and internet authorities (MIIT and CAC) need to work with platforms to ensure proper oversight
• Government-run school cafeterias, where supervision requires involvement from education authorities (MoE)

Here's a biggie: The doc calls to step up supervision of transport links, including new standards for vehicles used to move bulk food products.

• ICYDK – in July, news broke that dirty fuel tankers were being used to ship edible oil.

Get smart: Diagnosing a major source of food safety risks is one thing – but fixing it is another.

• Getting giant bureaucracies to coordinate is a tall order anywhere, but especially in China.

One thing's certain: Compliance requirements will tighten further for companies that process, transport, prepare, or sell food.