In recent years, the date of food production has been tampered with from time to time. On December 17, Jiangsu Consumer Protection Commission released the experience investigation report on the production date of prepackaged food, which explained the irregularities in the production date marking of common prepackaged food, such as sauce, drinks, grain and oil, snacks and so on.
On December 17, the reporter found in a large supermarket in Nanjing that the production date on many food packaging is printed with ink, which can be removed by gently wiping with paper or gently picking with your fingers.
According to the survey of Jiangsu Consumer Protection Commission on 110 prepackaged foods that may have "easy to wipe off" and "easy to fall off" production dates, the production dates of 92 groups of samples are "easy to wipe off", accounting for 83.6% of the total samples. In addition, the production date of 13 groups of samples is marked on the plastic film outside the bottle cap or package, which is easy to fall off.
According to the investigators, the production date of prepackaged food mainly includes laser printing, code spraying printing and steel seal. Laser printing has the highest adhesion, but sometimes the color is lighter; The steel seal is clear, but the cost is high. The use rate of inkjet printing is the highest, and the amount of ink can be controlled freely. However, due to the small adhesion of ink, the production date is easy to be erased. The cost of re marking the production date is quite low. The price of "production date inkjet printer" sold on some e-commerce platforms is only tens of yuan, and a bottle cap is only a few cents.
Zhao Xin of the supervision department of Jiangsu Consumer Protection Commission analyzed that there may be some illegal businesses that erase the production date of food that is about to expire or has expired, mark it with a new production date, and re-enter the market, bringing potential food safety hazards to consumers. Or some professionals beat dummies, and even erase or tear off the production date for the purpose of some improper claims.
The reporter learned that China's existing laws and regulations lack clear provisions on the production date, marking form, marking position and other information of prepackaged food. Jiangsu Consumer Protection Commission said that it would submit a letter of recommendation to the national food safety standards review committee in combination with the survey results, suggesting that on the basis of the draft for comments of the general rules for the labeling of prepackaged food under the national food safety standards, the provision of "the production date is not easy to be erased" should be added to further standardize the labeling of prepackaged food, and also provide the basis for administrative law enforcement departments to handle cases.