The key to the implementation of "Food recall system"

The State Food and Drug Administration recently announced the measures for the Administration of Food recalls, which will come into effect on September 1, 2015. ("People's Daily" 17 March)

Food is the most important thing for the people, and safety is the first thing to eat. The State Food and Drug Administration has issued the measures for the Administration of Food recall, standardizing behaviors closely related to food safety, such as food suspension, food recall, and food withdrawal. Compared with last year's measures for Supervision and Administration of Food recall and suspension of Operation (draft for soliciting opinions), the supervision and management measures this time are more specific and legal responsibilities are more clear. For example, making it clear that food producers and operators are the first responsible for food safety and that the first-level recall is launched within 24 hours fully demonstrates the country's determination and confidence in strict food safety supervision. it is also to realize the transformation of food safety from "supervision and management" to "governance according to law".

Article 53 of the Food Safety Law promulgated in 2009 stipulates that the state establishes a food recall system, which stipulates that when food producers find that the food they produce does not meet food safety standards, they should immediately stop production, recall food that has been sold on the market, notify the relevant producers, operators and consumers, and record the recall and notification. From the principled provisions of the law, to the step-by-step concretization and detail to today's "Food recall Management measures", China's "food recall" mechanism has been gradually improved from budding to perfecting.

When there is a food safety problem, immediately start the recall process, there is no doubt to add a "safety line" to public health. In developed countries, food recall is an important risk management option to deal with food safety incidents or emergencies, and it has become their habitual practice. From 1993 to 2003, there were an average of 335 food recalls in the United States.

Food recall requires government regulatory departments to play a leading role, but how to stimulate the initiative of producers and operators is also a very realistic problem.

From the perspective of countries with relatively sound and mature food recall systems, on the one hand, food recall is first of all the legal obligation of food producers, who bear the return, treatment, destruction and corresponding costs of problematic food in the recall process. On the other hand, the executive power of the food recall system comes from the food recall system, which contains the rights and obligations of producers, regulators and consumers, and is a complete working chain. Producers are only the executors of the specific behavior of "recall".

However, the premise of food recall is to find the existence of problem food. Enterprises can find problems by self-testing, but because of the calculation of operating costs, it is obviously unreliable to expect enterprises to take the initiative to recall problematic food; consumers can also find problems, but when they find problems, they often have serious consequences. Has lost the most favorable opportunity. Therefore, food recalls must be based on reliable testing and regulation. However, regulation of food production has always been a weak link, such as last year's Shanghai Husi out-of-date meat incident, in which no problems were found in seven inspections in two years.

Food recall is often a tedious process. A series of procedures, such as return, exchange and recovery, and destruction of defective food, will consume a lot of costs, and may even cause enterprises to fall into a serious reputation crisis until they go bankrupt. In the case of such a recall, that is, facing a greater crisis, how many enterprises are willing to take the initiative to implement the recall? We might as well learn from the successful experience of the United States and other developed countries, improve the establishment and improvement of relevant food recall insurance as soon as possible, and disperse the operational risks of enterprises, so that conscientious entrepreneurs will not fall into operational embarrassment as a result of voluntary recall. This can not only make the food recall realize smoothly, but also help to give full play to the economic compensation mechanism of insurance, reduce the relief pressure of the government, and promote the healthy development of the food industry.