Food Safety in Asia

Without any doubt, despite these challenges, China’s food safety system has its own unique features and advantages, Dr. Wu says. “China’s agricultural products and foods guarantee its 1.35 billion citizens the food they need,” he further stresses. “In addition, our country is able to contribute to the world food supply with exports.”

Actually, the level of food safety in China has been improving, Dr. Wu mentions.

“Using the scientific method, I calculated the value-at-risk of food safety in China,” he says. “There’s a clear decreasing trend in the overall risk in China’s food safety system. The overall risk value in the food safety system was 0.496 (on a scale of 0 to 1, with 0 being the best possible number and 1 being the worst possible number) in 2011, which was in a relatively safe range, despite various potential risks; it decreased to 0.258 in 2012, which was its lowest value and was relatively safe. However, no 100 percent safe foods exist, as inevitable potential risks exist even in the safe range. Therefore, it can be concluded that the level of food safety in China has been generally stable and gradually improving in recent years.”

Characterizing China as a developing country, Dr. Wu continues that, compared with developed countries, the advantages of China’s food safety system are constantly perfected food safety supervision, the strong leadership of the central government, and the assessment mechanism of food safety in local government.

“For example, after institutional reform in March, 2013, China’s new food safety management system has fundamentally changed compared with the previous system,” he elaborates. “The segmented regulatory model supplemented by supervision of individual foods was converted to a centralized regulatory model (see figure). This system has realized the effective integration of various regulatory resources and has unified the supervision and management of food production, distribution, and consumption.”

“This new system is the key factor that can maximize the stability of China’s food safety and facilitate further safety improvement in the future,” Dr. Wu says. “China’s social system is the foundation to fully confident in guaranteeing China’s food safety.”

Relative to the quality and safety of food produced in China, Dr. Wu says additional weaknesses include small, micro, and workshop-style food producers and processors that still account for approximately 90 percent of all food producers in China.

“If the traditional food industry is characterized by workshop-style, small-scale operations, the modern food industry seeks to develop large-scale, intensive, integrated, modern enterprises,” he purports. “Over the years, there have been some modern, large-scale food industry enterprises in China, and Chinese food producers and processors have experienced some changes in scale and organizational form. However, in general, the changes are not great enough to meet the needs of the modern food industry or the requirements of global food safety standards. But I believe this situation will continue to improve and become better the future.”

India: Aspiring World Food Factory

Mention food and India in the same breath and many devotees of Indian cuisine conjure thoughts of countless tantalizing dishes awash with pungent spices like cumin, turmeric, cardamom, and saffron.

Truly, the uniqueness of Indian foods is the beautiful blend of flavor and aroma which raises the appetite while the food is being cooked or processed or the container is being opened and heated to be served, says Deepa Bhajekar, PhD, director of “d technology” based in Navi Mumbai, India. Dr. Bhajekar describes d technology as a multidisciplinary consortium of scientists dedicated to translating new technological solutions to old unsolved problems of quality, consistency, and productivity in food and agri products.

“The assorted colors of our foods, usually contributed by spices, make for a visually appetizing delicious treat during any meal,” Dr. Bhajekar relates, noting that a typical Indian meal combines salty, sweet, creamy, spicy, hot, and pungent flavors.