The year is approaching
Dachshund is an important part of many people's preparations for the New Year
Especially in rural areas
Almost every household
Sausages are made before the Spring Festival
It's the taste of the New Year
However, just last January
Pork stall owner Chen Guanghui in Yuechi County, Sichuan Province
However, he was claimed 10 times for selling homemade sausages online
Now, Chen Guanghui is finally waiting for the first trial judgment
What was the verdict?
And why is it so judged?
Let's take a look
The court ruled that the seller: only refund, no compensation
Chen Guanghui never thought that selling dachshunds would get into a lawsuit. What's going on here? Let's review it first.
Chen Guanghui runs a pork stall in Yuechi County, Sichuan Province, where he sells meat and uses traditional handicrafts to process smoked sausages for sale. Usually, he also teaches fans the skills of picking fresh pork and the process of smoking sausages through his short video account.
In January 2021, a Shanxi netizen named "Little Prince" saw the short video he took and took the initiative to contact him to buy a sausage for 2,000 yuan. But a few days later, the "little prince" who received the sausage sent a message to Chen Guanghui saying that he was illegal, and because the prepackaged food he sold had no food labels and information, nor a production license, he filed a 10 times claim totaling 20,000 yuan... After Chen Guanghui refused, the "little prince" sued him to the People's Court of Jiexiu City, Shanxi Province.
Chen Guanghui suspected that the "little prince" was a "professional counterfeiter" who deliberately bought 2,000 yuan of sausages and then filed a 10 times claim, which was a kind of "touching porcelain" behavior. However, the "Little Prince" said in an interview that he was not a professional counterfeiter and that he was making demands in accordance with the food safety law.
Chen Guanghui's experience has aroused widespread concern in the society and heated discussion among netizens, and some merchants who sell similar local specialty products have also said that they have encountered similar lawsuits. On the morning of December 30, 2021, Chen Guanghui finally waited for the first-instance judgment of the "10 times claim for online sale of homemade sausages" that has attracted the attention of netizens across the country.
The court held that the defendant sold bulk food, not prepackaged food, and that the sale of bulk food did not require labeling on the packaging. In the end, the court dismissed the "Little Prince's" claim of 10 times. In addition, Chen Guanghui was asked to refund the "Little Prince" 1,000 yuan because the two parties caused the objective fact of "sausage deterioration" in the course of the litigation of the case, and both parties jointly bore the losses.
How to supervise the food safety of local characteristics?
For this lawsuit, Chen Guanghui said that the reason why he did not agree to mediation when the trial was first held was that he also hoped to know whether this way of selling was legal and compliant through this lawsuit, because there were many vendors like themselves, and they also wanted to know the answer.
In the year of the lawsuit, Chen Guanghui began to become cautious, even if the people who contacted him to buy sausages online were acquaintances and friends, he would still take the initiative to explain to the other party: the sausages were all smoked by hand, there was no production date, and there was no label... If the other party wants to buy, do not sue yourself for "selling three no products".
So, does this kind of small workshop-style homemade food without labels such as producer and production date mean that the product is not qualified?
The legal consequences of "three no products" need to distinguish whether they are "pre-packaged food" or "bulk food", which is also a point of controversy in this case. According to Article 150 of the Food Safety Law, prepackaged food refers to food that is pre-packaged or prepared in packaging materials or containers.
Mr. Wang Xiaopeng, managing partner of Shanghai Qifang Law Firm, said:
The determination of whether the food produced and sold is pre-packaged or bulk is mainly based on whether the product has been pre-packaged at the time of production or before sale. For example, in this case, the sausage produced by the stall owner Chen Guanghui was originally sold in bulk, and the sausage was temporarily packaged in order to facilitate the buyer's delivery, and this kind of packaging afterwards did not belong to the "pre-customized packaging in production" and therefore did not belong to the pre-packaged food.
Ji Ligang, a professor at Fudan University Law School, said:
According to the Food Safety Law, if there is no national food safety standard for local specialty foods, the health administrative department of the provincial-level people's government may formulate local food safety standards. In this case, the health administrative department of the Sichuan Provincial People's Government where the defendant is located formulated the Measures for the Administration of Local Food Safety Standards in Sichuan Province, clarifying the scope of local specialty foods, the content of local standards, and the procedures for formulating and modifying them.
In this case, the defendant Chen Guanghui had a business license, a sichuan provincial food workshop filing certificate, and a sichuan provincial food small business store filing certificate, which met the relevant provisions of the Regulations on the Administration of Small Food Workshops, Small Business Stores and Street Vendors in Sichuan Province. Therefore, the court did not support the "Little Prince's" claim that the defendant was producing without a license.
In this case, the court's decision struck a balance between market efficiency and food safety regulation.
For homemade specialty foods, because their production cycle and sales cycle are relatively short, the probability of food safety risks is not high, as long as they have obtained production licenses in advance, they should be encouraged to operate independently within the scope of legal compliance, reflecting the efficiency of the market economy.
Many places in China have their own local specialty foods, but whether it is an ancestral secret recipe or industrial production, the production and sale of any food should be carried out in strict accordance with the provisions of laws and regulations. The encouragement of the law does not mean that it can be arbitrary, and the operators of homemade food should also keep the bottom line of food safety, and once the homemade food does not meet the national food safety standards, they must also bear civil, administrative and even criminal liability.
Ji Ligang, a professor at Fudan University Law School, also reminded:
The sale of local specialty foods needs to comply with national food safety standards or local food safety standards formulated by local governments. In the process of food sales, it is recommended to provide consumers with production and sales information as much as possible, such as prompting the production date of the product in the food cabinet, the best eating date, food allergy source information, etc., so as to better protect the consumer's right to know and avoid the legal risks that may be faced.
The individual economy does not tolerate extortional rights protection
It is worth mentioning that the court also tried to find out that the "little prince" had previously had a number of cases involving consumer compensation in the court. Nowadays, some malicious rights protection that is obviously routine and even touching porcelain has reached out to the field of self-made agricultural product sales.
This case has attracted widespread attention because of its certain universality and case value. Keep in mind that homemade produce like sausages, bacon, honey and other homemade produce are now common online. In this process, how to avoid legal disputes is indeed a problem worthy of attention.
Against this background, the verdict in this case is undoubtedly a kind of legal awareness, that is, those who try to raise the legal stick to the individual traders who make homemade agricultural products will not succeed. The landing of this paper judgment not only allows Chen Guanghui, who sells homemade sausages, to run his own business more confidently, but also gives other small traders who sell sausages, bacon and other bulk foods a reassuring pill.
At the same time, because the sales channels of self-made agricultural products have expanded to the Internet, they cannot ignore the characteristics of their products and their inherent business attributes. Such homemade bacon and sausage sales are common in many county and township markets in China, and if it is found to be "illegal" across the board, this business model can only disappear in the market.
After encountering litigation, Chen Guanghui did not dare to sell sausages to "unfamiliar friends", and some vendors directly stopped selling online in the face of claims. Such a trembling "self-protection" reaction of self-employed people is obviously not a normal phenomenon.
In fact, the sale of homemade agricultural products by individual traders is a generally accepted spontaneous individual economic model, which not only meets the market characteristics of counties and towns and the consumption needs of residents, but also is an important form of grass-roots employment. Of course, the food safety issue needs to be seriously treated, but the determination of its legal nature must be fully combined with the reality of this business model, otherwise it is very easy to hurt the vitality of the individual economy.
When malicious rights protection reached out
Homemade produce marketing areas
The law must take a stand
And for homemade produce
Sell from the traditional to acquaintances
Shift to online selling
Gray areas and room for controversy that can be amplified
Relevant laws and regulations
A clearer and more rational definition should also be given
Truly let the porcelain rights protection lose the market
It also protects the individual economy from unnecessary risks