Supermarket agricultural and sideline products incorporated into routine qualitative testing

Recently, the Food Safety Inspection Vehicle of the Commercial and Commercial Xiaoshan Branch entered a large-scale supermarket in the urban area and conducted a qualitative inspection of food safety of some primary edible agricultural products, and sent further inspections to the five batches that failed the inspection for quantitative detection.

With the change in consumption habits, the percentage of people who go to supermarkets to buy agricultural and sideline products is getting higher and higher, and the sales of fresh fruits and vegetables in major supermarkets are increasing. For this reason, our district has incorporated supermarket agricultural and sideline products into the scope of daily rapid qualitative testing to enhance the awareness of food safety among business households and to ensure the safety of consumers' dining tables.

It is understood that qualitative testing of food safety is mainly aimed at the primary food and agricultural by-products of the farmers' market and shopping malls, and carries out tests such as hanging white pieces, sulfur dioxide, nitrite, formaldehyde, borax, hydrogen peroxide, and pesticide residues.

At present, our district has a total of 120 batches of primary agricultural and sideline products that have been marketed and sold in supermarket shopping malls, and 17 unqualified batches have been detected. The average qualification rate is nearly 10 percentage points lower than that of primary agricultural and sideline products that are marketed and sold in farmers' markets. Compared with farmers’ markets, the quality of primary food products for supermarkets is not optimistic.

"Compared with the farmers' market, supermarkets have relatively weak self-checking capabilities and control capabilities," said the relevant person in charge of the Market Contracting Branch of the Commerce and Industry Xiaoshan Branch. It is reported that in the registered farmer's market in the region, there are 49 market testing rooms, accounting for 63% of the registered farmers' markets. Among them, 18 state-owned farmers' markets have all established testing rooms, and 90% of the town (street)-level farmers' markets have established testing rooms. Every morning at 6 a.m., staff performed tests on agricultural products and announced the results in a timely manner, forming an effective food safety inspection network.

According to reports, supermarkets in our district have not yet established an effective commodity inspection and collection mechanism. Many mall supermarkets only require suppliers to provide pesticide residue detection reports when fresh vegetables are brought into the market. However, because they do not have corresponding testing equipment, they are unable to check and accept whether fresh produce meets the listing requirements.