Quick-frozen dumplings are a common ingredient in many people's refrigerators, and careful consumers have found that some brands of quick-frozen dumplings are clearly labeled as pork XX dumplings, but the content of other meats in the ingredient list, such as chicken, and even "vegetarian meat" such as puffed soy products, is higher than pork. And this seemingly "unspoken rule" of the market has now been punished by the regulatory authorities. A reporter from Beijing Youth Daily learned on January 11 that a few days ago, the Shanghai Municipal Administration for Market Regulation announced that in the typical cases of the 2023 anti-unfair competition "guard" special law enforcement action, Haibawang was listed as a typical example for the false publicity of quick-frozen dumplings.
The content of chicken or duck skin is higher than that of pork, but it is also called pork dumplings
Haibawang was fined 500,000 yuan for false publicity
According to the disclosure of the Shanghai Municipal Supervision Bureau, since November 2020, affected by the sharp increase in pork prices, in order to reduce the cost of raw materials, Haibawang has greatly reduced the pork ingredient content in 19 quick-frozen dumpling products such as "cabbage pork dumplings 500g", resulting in the content of chicken or duck skin in the ingredients of the above-mentioned products being higher than that of pork, and pork is no longer the main ingredient of the above-mentioned dumpling filling ingredients.
However, in order to gain a competitive advantage, Haibawang designed and produced its own product packaging, and still used a striking font on the outer packaging of the above-mentioned 19 quick-frozen dumpling products to use "pork dumplings" as the product name, and did not remark in a conspicuous position to indicate the change of the main ingredients of the product, resulting in consumers misidentifying the ingredients of the product. At the time of the case, Haibawang sold a total of more than 140 packages of the above-mentioned types of quick-frozen dumpling products.
The company's use of product names to falsely advertise product traits violated the relevant provisions of the Anti-Unfair Competition Law. In February 2023, the Shanghai Changning District Market Supervision Bureau ordered it to stop its illegal acts in accordance with the law and fined it 500,000 yuan.
Some supermarkets in Beijing have not found the products involved
In response to this matter, a reporter from Beiqing Daily visited some supermarkets such as Beijing Hualian, Yonghui, and Jingkelong, and did not find Haibawang's quick-frozen dumpling products on sale for the time being. Some supermarket staff said that there were quick-frozen hot pot balls of the brand, but they had never sold their quick-frozen dumpling products.
In the online channel, in the flagship store of Haibawang in the e-commerce industry, there are quick-frozen dumplings such as mushroom pork, capsule's pork, corn and shrimp dumplings on sale, but there is no ingredient list and other information on the relevant product pages.
In response to the temporary punishment, the staff of Haibawang responded to the media that it was mainly because the labeling of cabbage and pork dumpling products was not standardized and flawed, and it has been rectified. Now the products sold on the market are in line with the requirements of national standards, and there are third-party inspection products, and there are no products that were not standardized before.
According to public information, Haibawang International Group is a wholly-owned enterprise integrating frozen food, entertainment and real estate, and its mainland headquarters was established in 1994. The product line of Haibawang involves more than 200 varieties in nine series, including hot pot dumplings, glutinous rice balls, dumplings, balls, fish slurry products, skewers, buns, meat products, salads, etc., with an annual production of more than 150,000 tons of quick-frozen food.
"Unworthy of the name" quick-frozen dumplings are not only Haibawang's family
In response to the penalty for Haibawang's quick-frozen dumplings, some netizens said, "I never expected", "I thought of using pork of not very good quality for some quick-frozen dumplings, but I didn't expect that people use more than just pork." ”
A reporter from Beiqing Daily visited the market and found that the quick-frozen dumplings named after a certain meat are not the only ones in the ingredient list, and the meat has become the "unspoken rule" of the quick-frozen dumpling industry.
A reporter from Beiqing Daily randomly selected nearly 20 varieties of quick-frozen dumplings from 7 brands, including Sanquan, Synear, Wan Chai Pier, Bibigo, Boat Song, Elephant Chef, and Liangxin Craftsman, on online and offline platforms, and found that most of them had more than one kind of meat in their outer packaging or in the ingredient list published on the website. Many consumers can understand that fish dumplings and shrimp dumplings contain pork, but beef and green onion dumplings contain pork, and pork and cabbage dumplings contain chicken, and they rank high.
Pork and cabbage dumplings, ingredient list: chicken ranks higher than pork
In the ingredient list of Sanquan's pork and cabbage dumplings, chicken is lined up in front of pork, ranking fifth. The top four ingredients for this dumpling are wheat flour, cabbage, water and soy protein. Some industry insiders said that soy protein generally not only increases the protein content in the filling of quick-frozen dumplings, but also plays a role in the taste, which is what people often call "vegetarian meat". Not only this one, but like Chef's celery pork dumplings, puffed soy products similar to soy protein are also ranked in front of pork and chicken in the ingredient list.
A reporter from Beiqing Daily learned that according to mainland laws and regulations, in the food ingredient list, the order of ingredients is decreasing according to their content in food. In other words, the content of "vegetarian meat" in the above-mentioned dumplings is higher than that of meat.
What's even more strange is that some quick-frozen dumplings do not have the word bean at all in the ingredient list, but "soybean" appears in the allergen information, and is also listed in front of the egg that ranks eighth in the ingredient.
The punishment of the Sea Overlord is representative
When buying frozen food, pay more attention to the ingredient list
Industry insiders said that adding different meats to dumplings, in addition to balancing the taste of the filling, is mainly to save costs, and the use of "vegetarian meat" to obtain the taste of lean meat is also the same purpose. At present, the national standard for quick-frozen food is a health standard, which guarantees food safety, and there are no specific provisions on the composition of fillings. Therefore, this situation has become an "unspoken rule" in the industry. As a result, the market price of the same pork and cabbage dumplings, the same 800-gram package, is very different, and the price of some brands can even be more than half cheaper than other brands, all because of this situation.
In the administrative penalty for the false publicity case of Haibawang, the Market Supervision Bureau of Changning District, Shanghai, stated that the ingredients of quick-frozen dumpling products are the main characteristics of the product, and the product name is an important information to describe the product and provide consumers with knowledge and knowledge of the product characteristics. Operators in the quick-frozen dumpling industry usually use the main fillings and ingredients of quick-frozen dumplings as the product name. This practice gives consumers a high degree of trust in the information about the main ingredients in the product name and is also an important factor in the choice of the product for the consumer.
There are already brands that list the percentage of the main filling
A reporter from Beiqing Daily found that some brands of quick-frozen dumplings have begun to clearly mark the percentage of fillings in the ingredient list. Other brands indicate the percentage content of the main meat and vegetables in the filling list to show that the ingredients used in the product are solid.
Zhu Danpeng, an analyst of China's food industry, said that it is very necessary for Haibawang to be punished accordingly, and many food companies have also adopted similar means in the process of competition, using low-priced raw materials to replace high-priced raw materials, cutting corners, shoddy, and deceiving consumers. The punishment of Haibawang protects the legitimate rights and interests of consumers, and also purifies the chaos in the industry to a certain extent. At the same time, he also suggested that consumers should read the ingredient list when buying quick-frozen food, and not just rely on the product name to make a choice.
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Text/Beijing Youth Daily reporter Zhang Xin intern Rong Qiaofeng
Editor/Fan Hongwei