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The Sleeping Giant Has Awakened: Reflections on Attending Food Safety Conference in China
by Julia Bradsher
Legend has it that Napoleon Bonaparte once said, when pointing to China on a map, “There, is a sleeping giant. Let him sleep! If he awakes, he will shake the world." I doubt there is a person reading this today that doesn’t know that China has become a significant force in the global food supply.
It is nothing new to say that our food supply has become an increasingly global one. It is estimated that 20% of our food in the United States is imported. This percentage is much higher when you look at certain food products like seafood and fresh produce. China is one of the fastest growing sources of U.S. food imports. It has emerged as the third largest supplier of imported food into the United States after Canada and Mexico.
With the growth of China as an U.S. food source, American public scrutiny and media attention has also increasingly focused on food safety problems in China. Food safety is also a concern among Chinese citizens, as well. This past year alone, there has been plenty: Glow in the dark pork, anti-freeze vinegar, exploding watermelons. While the Chinese government is trying to get a handle on food safety problems in their country, it is creating challenges for them and, oftentimes, embarrassment. It is an understatement to say that China has become a food safety hot zone.
Back to the Future?
About 25 years ago, when I was a graduate student, I spent a summer as an exchange student at what was then the newly established Shantou University in the southern part of the Guangdong Province of China. The China I visited was only 10 years beyond the Mao era. All aspects of life were controlled by the State, and privatization was virtually unheard of. At that time, over sixty percent of the population engaged in agriculture. There were seven telephone lines coming into the city of Shantou at that time, with a population of 750,000. A car was rare with hundreds of bicycles on the streets, tractors unheard of on the farms, and most Chinese had never personally encountered Americans. I remember having a woman walk up to me and touch my curly hair in amazement. Needless to say, the China I experienced in 1986 was like stepping back into a pre-industrial revolution era. We were cautioned to never eat food from vendors on the streets, only drink boiled water or bottled water, and never eat fresh fruits and vegetables unless carefully washed with known “safe water”.
Now, fast-forward to November, 2011. As the president and CEO of the Global Food Protection Institute, I had the opportunity to travel to Beijing to do a presentation on the importance of food safety training at the Fifth Annual China International Food Safety and Quality Conference (CIFSQ). The China of today is the second largest economy in the world. It is the third leading foreign supplier of agricultural and seafood products to the U.S. after Canada and Mexico. Virtually everyone in Beijing has a cellular telephone and wireless internet access is everywhere. Shopping malls are part of the Beijing landscape with food courts that include McDonald’s, Kentucky Fried Chicken, and Pizza Hut. Thousands of privately owned cars on the road have been added to the bicycles, motorcycles, and scooters. Pollution in the air is the norm in Beijing – the entire week I was in Beijing in November, there was thick smog in the air. And yet, we were cautioned by colleagues to never eat food from vendors on the streets, only drink bottled water, and ideally, eat at the hotel, US fast food chains, and restaurants on the main streets.
The Conference
The CIFSQ was held in Beijing on November 2-3, 2011. This was the fifth year for the conference, and it has developed a very strong attendance of over 750 people that cuts across the stakeholders of food safety in China: regulatory officials (Chinese and other countries), food safety and quality personnel from food companies, food science and safety laboratories, training and certification organizations, to name a few.
If I had to pinpoint themes in the conference, I would say there are probably three to four. First, almost every keynote speech and breakout session carried a theme of collaboration and cooperation. In order for China to address its own domestic food safety issues, as well as the concerns of countries who import there food like the United States, collaboration, cooperation, and transparency will be needed. It was very evident by the tone of the speeches by Chinese government officials that they have embraced and made a commitment to improving food safety in the country. The most critical challenge will be to push the food safety and quality policies, practices, and infrastructure down to the level of food production.
The second theme that carried through the conference is the need for uniform standards in food safety. While I am not fluent in Mandarin, I can’t help imagine that all those attending the conference that were not fluent in English must have been daunted by the alphabet soup of food safety systems, standards, audits, certifications, and schemes: FSSC, ISO, HACCP, BRC, GFSI, IFS, and PAS. Mind you, I am not mocking or minimizing the importance and critical value of these. Rather, I am calling out our responsibility when you take into consideration the first theme of collaboration and cooperation. It behooves those of us who are from the countries that are importing China’s food products and those multinational companies that are seeking to participate in the economic opportunities in present in China, to demystify food safety and help get things down to the basics.
The third theme that was apparent throughout the conference was the imperative for all governments in our global economy, regardless of where in the world, to demonstrate to their consuming public, their commitment to improving the safety of the food supply. This theme carried throughout many speakers who represented several countries – Mike Taylor and Dara Corrigan from the US FDA, Li Tairan and Fan Yongxiang from the China Ministry of Health. From the perspective of the United States, the focus was on the Food Safety Modernization Act and the role that new law will play in regulating food exports from China into the United States. In China, there is a renewed commitment from top government officials to improve food safety and hold food producers accountable. One of the speakers at the conference indicated that there are approximately 720,000 inspectors on the ground in China who are charged with inspections to ensure the safety of food produced in China.
Managing Expectations
My overall take-away from my first trip to China in 25 years is that there is great need in China and that there are many organizations, including my own, the Global Food Protection Institute, that can assist China in rising to the occasion. Given that “the sleeping giant” is awake, and he is shaking the world, we can assist them in making up for lost time. In the United States, we’ve had almost 100 years to develop the infrastructure we have to ensure food safety and we’re still not getting it right – case in point the most recent outbreak due to Listeria-contaminated cantaloupes. When FSMA became law, it was the first reform in food safety regulation in almost 75 years. Therefore, we have to set expectations for Chinese food producers if they are going to import food into the United States, and, at the same time, we have to manage our expectations that they are going to be ready and able to change their processes in rapid fashion.
Being Catalyst for Rapid Change
When I returned to the United States and sat down to debrief with the staff here at the Global Food Protection Institute, I asked the question, “How can we be catalyst for rapid change in China?” Our answer was easy – training through our International Food Protection Training Institute.
In China as in other parts of the world, technology has advanced so quickly that it has outpaced more traditional regulatory approaches. Training will be key to ensuring a foundation is built to support food safety in China. Training will also help everyone get on an equal footing and learn new approaches to regulation and inspection. The growing complexity of food production, processing, and distribution challenge the expertise of regulators and inspectors and training will help to address those challenges. Finally, with the increasing demand for safer food and the volume of newly hired inspectors, the underlying base of food safety knowledge and skills is limited. Training will help bring that base of knowledge and skills to a higher level.
Training is a critical element to ensuring that all elements of the food system in China are at a performance level that will ensure the highest level of food safety. That means that regulatory officials, inspectors, food safety and quality personnel from food producers and manufacturers, food scientist, food laboratories, third party auditors, all have adequate training using a standards-based training approach.
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