□ Commentator Li Xiaolong
Recently, some media reporters have gone undercover for McDonald's Zhengzhou Excellence Agricultural Federation Restaurant and McDonald's Jinan University Restaurant, and found that both restaurants have problems such as tampering with food shelf life labels, using expired ingredients, and cutting corners. The news sparked heated public discussions after the disclosure.
The latest news shows that the market supervision departments in Zhengzhou and Jinan have gone to the stores involved to investigate and collect evidence. The staff of the Market Supervision Bureau of Shizhong District of Jinan City responded that the test results will be released through the Propaganda Department of the Shizhong District Committee of the city.
On the evening of May 13, McDonald's China issued a statement saying: "Any violation of operational standards will not be tolerated and will be dealt with seriously." However, according to media reports, the two McDonald's stores involved are currently operating normally, and the relevant test results of the market supervision department have not been released for the time being.
As an international chain brand, McDonald's has a strict food safety management system, and is even regarded as a benchmark in the catering industry. Is it a pure coincidence that the two restaurants exposed this time are in different provinces and cities, or is this not an isolated case in McDonald's stores?
By checking previous reports, it can be found that the phenomenon of expired ingredients changing labels and continuing to use and sell them is not the first time that McDonald's has appeared. In March 2012, CCTV's "3.15" party named McDonald's Sanlitun restaurant for illegal operations such as refurbishment and resale of expired food; In October 2021, a vlogger secretly visited a McDonald's restaurant in Hefei, Anhui Province, and found that the restaurant had problems such as blackened lettuce and still in use, and replacing expired food labels; In March 2022, an employee at a McDonald's store in Nanjing reported that the meat ingredients in the store were still served to customers after they had expired.
What's even more surprising is that McDonald's is not the only one that has been exposed to changing the label of expired ingredients (products), combing through the news reports and market supervision departments in recent years, there are well-known food production enterprises, chain catering brands and large supermarkets have been exposed to similar problems.
On January 26 this year, Beijing Walmart Sam's Club Co., Ltd. was fined 5,000 yuan by the Beijing Shunyi District Market Supervision Bureau for having two production dates for bagged "milk chocolate" and the product packaging had wiping marks.
In April 2023, the Market Supervision Bureau of Tonglu County, Zhejiang Province issued a notice stating that after preliminary verification, it was found that Hangzhou Wushang Food Co., Ltd. was suspected of removing and packaging products whose shelf life has not yet expired and reprocessing them as raw materials.
Another example is in July 2022, a media reporter went undercover for Pizza Hut Beijing Harmony Square and Weigongcun stores and found that there were a variety of food safety problems in the back kitchen: "Restaurant managers tampered with expiration date labels, and ingredients were not discarded on time; Employees remove the outer packaging and 'break into zero' expired ingredients ......"
Why do problems such as food "visa renewal" occur every year when they are exposed? There are three reasons for the analysis: first, the implementation of the enterprise food safety supervision system is not effective, and there are loopholes in the supervision mechanism; secondly, the cost of violating the law is too low, and it is difficult for administrative penalties to form an effective deterrent; In addition, it is difficult to provide evidence for the issue of "visa renewal", which also makes enterprises have a fluke mentality.
How to cure the stubborn disease of food "visa renewal"? Based on the existing comments and expert opinions, it mainly focuses on two aspects, one is to call on enterprises to take their due responsibilities and leave no flaws and omissions. The second is to call on the regulatory authorities to increase the intensity of investigation and rectification, and the supervision should achieve the effect of punishing violators and warning other operators.
We should be fully aware that the legitimate rights and interests of consumers are ignored, which may be the biggest shortcoming in curing the stubborn disease of food "renewal".
In the news reports and regulatory notices that have been made public, it is almost impossible to see the news that consumers have received compensation for such incidents as McDonald's, Pizza Hut and other companies involved in the incident, such as public apologies, strengthening internal rectification, and closing relevant stores, as well as administrative penalties issued by administrative functional departments.
But why is it so difficult to see consumers taking the initiative to claim compensation in similar incidents? On the one hand, the difficulty of adducing evidence is also prohibitive for many consumers. In such a context, of course, enterprises will not take the initiative to compensate.
Judging from the relevant provisions of the Food Safety Law and the Consumer Rights Protection Law of the mainland, the consumers involved in the above-mentioned food safety incidents have the right to receive corresponding compensation and can even request punitive damages. The act of changing the production date and shelf life of food labels will not only cause consumers to misjudge or fail to judge the shelf life of food, but also obviously constitute fraud to consumers, and may also cause consumers to eat food that has deteriorated or exceeded the shelf life, causing health risks. In order to severely punish food safety violations, the second paragraph of Article 148 of the Food Safety Law stipulates that "one refund and compensation of ten", which together with the provisions of Article 1207 of the Civil Code and Article 55 of the Law on the Protection of Consumer Rights and Interests, constitute the legal basis for punitive damages to protect consumer rights and interests in the mainland. Therefore, some experts pointed out that the punitive damages system is conducive to the improvement of the legal system of the market economy, and forces enterprises to improve product quality by increasing the cost of enterprise dishonesty; It is conducive to reducing the cost of consumer rights protection and stimulating consumers' enthusiasm for protecting their rights.
Interestingly, not all food companies are so indifferent. Not long ago, after the "fat cat" empty package takeaway incident, Chabaidao issued an apology statement, and the orders involved have been required to refund all the stores involved, apologize one by one, and give cash compensation of 10 times the amount of each order in accordance with the requirements of relevant laws and regulations. is also suspected of consumer fraud, and the merchant involved in the "no chicken in the chicken" compensated the consumer 1,000 yuan after the local market supervision department intervened in the investigation.
In fact, the relevant state departments are also gradually improving the punitive damages system. In December 2021, the "14th Five-Year Plan for the Modernization of Market Supervision" issued by the State Council mentioned that it was necessary to "explore the establishment of a punitive damages system for civil public interest litigation on food safety" in the article "Adhere to the bottom line of safety and strengthen the protection of consumer rights and interests"; The previous "13th Five-Year Plan" also clearly mentioned that it is necessary to "improve the punitive damages system in the consumer field" and "make consumers a strong supervisor and defender of the consumption order".
It is expected that the above system can be implemented as soon as possible, make up for the last shortcoming of all kinds of food safety "stubborn diseases", and make the punitive damages system truly one of the swords hanging over the head of the enterprise.
Source | Consumer Quality Report
Edit | Chen Ruini
Proofreading | Li Xingtong
Editor-in-charge | Zhang Ke
Audit | Kai Yongli
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