Frozen Chinese dumplings are making a huge scare in Japan since January. More than thousand people reported to have felt sick after eating frozen dumpling products made in China, and one girl fell into a coma ( but later recovered consciousness). It was reported that more than 3000 people got sick. And the list of contaminated products has increased over last several weeks, now including frozen pork cutlet, rolled cabbage stew, and pork cutlet rice bowl, etc. These products were made by a Chinese farm and distributed by Japan Tobacco and other Japanese food companies (and interestingly, consumer co-op, which prided itself for the “guardian of food safety.”)
Chinese and Japanese authorities are still no in agreement where the poisoning took place, but it seems that the Japanese police believes it was in China, at the manufacturing factory. Some suspect anti-Japan groups were behind the scene, whereas others point to the possible relation to a labor dispute. Although the workers at this factor are considered to be treated relatively well compared to other factories, they make 4-5000 dumplings a day and get only 3.5-5 dollars/day. And when Chinese government, in preparation for the Olympics, came up with a better worker protection law that would make it more difficult to fire workers, the factory preemptively laid off several “problem” workers.
Japanese have become so dependent on import food (we only produce 39% of what we consume) that it is actually a part of the longer history of having to avoid foreign products. Right now, anything “made in China” seems to come with poison, from lead-painted toys to antibiotics-laden eels, but in the 1990s it was American corn (after Starlink incident) and American beef (after mad cow blowup in the US).
Although concerned consumers are looking to avoid food from China, it is actually pretty hard to do so because a lot of things are missed out in food labels. The current law (Law of JIS) was created with the assumption that food was made in Japan, and hence does not require companies to list origin of all the ingredients. For instance, a label will tell you that the dumpling was made in Japan, but the ingredients might have come from other countries. In the same way, dumplings could be labeled as made in China, but it does not necessarily mean that all the ingredients were made in China.
Scary. Ever since we started hearing about all the food and product safety issues coming from China, I’ve stopped buying noodles and candy and other things made in China that I used to love to pick up at the Asian grocery.
Whenever I talk to people about this issue, someone inevitably asks – why is this happening now? I mean, I remember having lots of toys labeled “Made in China” when I was little, but I don’t recall any scares about lead or other toxins. Were we just unaware of the problems in Chinese manufacturing, or are these problems new? Or is it that, in the US, an increasing amount of the stuff we buy is from China, so the chances of exposure to something poisonous are rising? I feel like I should know the answer, but I don’t.
Is this the result of PRC capitalism?
I have personally always avoided food products that come from China, theres just a long history of lax standards and poor quality goods.