Adding sodium metabisulfite when making cold powder 17 people in Jingdezhen were sentenced and compensated tenfold

Nanchang, September 29 (Xinhua) -- On September 28, the Jingdezhen Intermediate People's Court publicly pronounced a verdict on the case of defendant Lin X and 17 others convicted of the crime of producing and selling food that did not meet safety standards, and sentenced defendant Lin X to two years' imprisonment in accordance with the law, and the remaining 16 defendants were sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment ranging from one year and one month to three months of detention and suspended for six months. At the same time, the defendants were sentenced to bear ten times the punitive civil damages and apologized in newspapers and periodicals publicly distributed throughout the country.

After trial, it was ascertained that in June 2007, defendant Lin established a food company in Jingdezhen City (hereinafter referred to as "a food company"), and in order to achieve the freshness preservation effect of cold powder, a food company added the food additive sodium metabisulfite to the raw materials for the production of cold powder. In May 2015, the "GB2760-2014 Food Additive Use Standard" was implemented, which clarified that sodium metabisulfite should not be added to rice flour products.

On November 25, 2015 and September 20, 2016, the Jingdezhen Municipal Market Supervision and Administration Bureau conducted a sampling test on the cold powder produced and operated by a food company, and the test result was that the residual amount of sulfur dioxide was unqualified, and an administrative penalty was imposed on a food company twice. Later, in order to retain cold powder wholesale customers, defendant Lin provided more than 10 cold powder wholesalers such as defendants Xu Mouqiang and Feng Moubing with pools and venues specifically used for washing powder, and tacitly agreed that each wholesaler added sodium metabisulfite to the cold powder washing powder.

In April 2018, Lin mou on the basis of a food company and others to set up a food factory, mainly producing cold powder, rice cakes, etc., Lin knew that Xu Mouqiang, Feng Moubing and other wholesalers added sodium metabisulfite to the washing powder, still provided a pool, and expressed acquiescence to the wholesaler's behavior of adding sodium metabisulfite, and occasionally provided sodium metabisulfite to the wholesaler. On September 7, 2019, the public security organs seized more than 100 to 1,000 kilograms of cold powder from Lin Mouqiang, Xu Mouqiang, Feng Moubing and other defendants, and after testing, the residual amount of sulfur dioxide was unqualified.

The relevant departments organized food supervision and medical experts to demonstrate, and the experts agreed that long-term consumption of cold powder with sodium metabisulfite has greater harm to the human body's respiratory tract, esophagus, liver and kidney function, and will cause a decline in human lung function, liver function, kidney function and immune function.

The court held that in the process of producing and selling cold powder, defendant Lin X and others violated national food safety standards and abused the food additive sodium metabisulfite, which was enough to cause serious foodborne diseases, and their behavior constituted the crime of producing and selling food that did not meet safety standards, and the defendant's behavior also infringed on the legitimate rights and interests of many unspecified groups of people, and should bear civil compensation liability according to law. Defendant Lin and 17 others had no objection to the facts of the alleged crime, voluntarily admitted guilt, sincerely repented, and signed an affidavit, thus making the above judgment in accordance with law.

Source: China News Network