China launches new food counterfeit campaigns

Chinese market regulators have launched crackdowns on adulteration and fraud in cooking oil and meat industries. Chinese authorities have claimed to have solved these food safety and fraud problems on multiple occasions over the past 30 years. 

Fraud and adulteration in China's cooking oil industry will be the focus of a crackdown announced by the State Administration of Market Supervision and Regulation that began April 12 and will continue through December 2025. The rectification will address prominent problems and illegal business behavior that threatens the quality and safety of edible oils, including:

• Adulteration and counterfeiting, including the sale of cheap oils as premium oils and passing off expired oils as new product.
• Excessive use of additives such as flavorings, fragrances, and pigments during the production and processing of vegetable oils.
• False labeling: unlabeled oils or products that inaccurately declare proportions of blended oils, failure to clearly label genetically modified vegetable oils, and false labeling of vegetable oil extraction processes. 
• Failure to fulfill delivery of bulk vegetable oil or failure to carry out responsibilities and obligations in delivery, unloading and loading of oils. 

This illustration instructs consumers how to distinguish pure sesame oil
from sesame oil mixed with cheap rapeseed or cottonseed oil.

The agency said the crackdown will include random inspections and monitoring and collecting tips from consumers submitted through a hotline. There will be factory inspections, checks of raw material, assessment of process controls, and inspections of production and sales records. The agency promises quick and severe punishments, including revocation of licenses, bans, arrests and prosecutions.

Shandong Province announced its own investigation of edible oil and meat. The Shandong campaign sponsored by its market regulation, public security and livestock bureaus and its food and drug administration will focus on high-priced oils such as sesame and peanut oil from now through December. Shandong is one of the top regions for processing soybean and peanut oil.

The Shandong agency is asking for tips from the public on the following edible oil violations:

• diluting premium oils with cheap oils
• adding flavors, spices and pigments to low-end oils to make "fake sesame oil" or "fake peanut oil."
• using "gutter oil" to process vegetable oil
• passing off expired oils as new vegetable oil

Shandong is looking for meat problems that include the sale of sick animals, use of clenbuterol and other banned muscle-building compounds, and production and sale of fake meat.

The new edible oil campaign comes nearly a year after Chinese news media revealed in summer 2024 that trucks delivering petroleum products in northern China were filled with vegetable oils for the backhaul without cleaning the tanks (discussed in this post on news media last year). Chinese news media last year claimed this was an isolated incident, but this crackdown appears to include this problem as well as a much broader scope of fraud.

A number of provincial and local governments have announced crackdowns focused on meat fraud, adulteration, and disease.

Rats allegedly to be used to make fake lamb.

Heilongjiang Province launched a meat industry rectification campaign on April 30 with a longer list of meat problems:

• addition of non-food materials, pesticide residues exceeding tolerances (on meat), and excessive use of food additives.
• processing, storing, or selling meat from animals that died of disease, toxins or unknown causes.
• deceiving consumers by passing off chicken and duck as beef and mutton, passing off other livestock and poultry blood products as duck blood, and using "trough meat" without removing diseased lymph nodes and diseased tissues.
• failure to obtain inspection certificates
• selling cooked food, braised food and other meat products from unknown origins
• processing or selling uninspected meat, meat from unknown origin, or smuggled frozen meat t
• production and sale of fake beef, mutton, donkey and other meat products
• illegal use of nitrites and food additives beyond prescribed limits
• false advertising of meat products on e-commerce or for direct sale.

Gansu Province launched a meat rectification campaign on April 18 that included:

• use of beta agonists, banned medications and other illegal additives and compounds.
• failure of farms to safely dispose of diseased animals; sale of meat from dead animals
• failure of slaughter facilities to check the registration system, acceptance of uninspected animals, pumping water or drugs into animals at slaughter
• unlicensed slaughter of hogs, cattle and sheep
• purchasing meat from animals that died of disease, toxins or unknown causes
• hotpot, barbecue and donkey restaurants purchasing meat from unknown origin or lacking inspection

Gansu also launched a rectification focused on fraudulent food in rural areas that includes unlicensed food production, sale of counterfeit foods, use of rotten or nonfood raw materials, chemical additives, and false claims that foods cure disease, promote weight loss or act as aphrodisiacs.