First, let’s be clear, food product substitution is not restricted to China. We assume that what is in the packet is the same as what is said on the label. It is not always the case. Several Australian meat packers were banned from exporting to China because what was in the box did not match what was on the label.
By now, many people are familiar with horrifying stories of cost-saving in China. In the latest scandal, a tanker truck drove 1,300km from Ningxia province in western China to the coastal city of Qinghuangdao, just east of Beijing. It delivered thousands of litres of fuel. To save costs, the fuel tanks were refilled with cooking oil for its trip back to Ningxia.
It has echoes of the decades-old “melamine in the milk” saga, or the use of discarded cooking oil, repackaged and sold as a new product. This latest incident raises several issues.
