Ingredients focus for new Chinese food safety index
proposed for the burgeoning Chinese food market.
A recent report from the People's Daily claims that Beijing is planning to compile its first dossier on food safety later this year.
The Food Safety Credit Index will monitor the food brands sold in supermarkets and wholesale, and assess their safety standards, says the paper.
"The aim of the index is to tackle cases of food producers releasing products which contain expired ingredients," adds the report.
Opportunities for global ingredients players have opened up in China on the back of a soaring Chinese food industry that has witnessed an explosion in sales. Valued at under 100 billion yuan in 1991, sales reached well over 400 billion yuan just ten years later.
Driving the market is the increased spending power and changing eating habits of China's 1.3 billion people who are transforming the country's food sector, both domestically and in foreign trade.
Foreign brands of soft drinks, yoghurt, sausage, crisps, breakfast cereals, jellies, wine, and other foods and beverages comprise about 5 per cent of products in Chinese supermarkets, but many of those products are also manufactured with local ingredients, claims the US department of agriculture.
According to the People's Daily report, Beijing plans to publish the index every three to six months.
