To ensure food safety and to improve the quality level of its products, Carrefour Haiguangsi Store, Tianjin, has set up a food safety testing lab.
The lab is used to test for seven items: pesticide residue, bleach, clenbuterol, water content in pork, formaldehyde, sodium formaldehyde sulfoxylate, and nitrate. Each day the lab will regularly check more than one hundred products in five categories: vegetables, fruit, meat, seafood, and grains and oil.
The technicians of the testing lab will compare test results and double test to ensure the accuracy of the test results and the tests will be finished before eight a.m. every day to ensure that all products sold to customers are fresh and safe.
At the same time, to monitor the quality level of these products, the testing lab will regularly analyze the testing statistics and make adjustments to the testing items. For some seasonal products such as vegetable and fruit, the lab will adjust the test subjects in different seasons.
To ensure the effectiveness of the lab, Carrefour gives a one-vote veto to the lab, which means if any product is found to be substandard in the testing, it will be immediately withdrawn and sealed up for further tests in government-approved labs; if the product is still found substandard after further tests, Carrefour will destroy all products concerned and impose penalties on the relevant suppliers; if the situation is serious, Carrefour says it will stop trading with these suppliers.
This is nothing new, as this has been enforced to all Supermarket in Beijing since last year. The supermarket has been asked to do this "lab test" on their own and then send to the samples "govt approved lab" for analysis. The "lab test" comes in an aluminium case filled with the necessary things to do the tests. It costs RMB2000 over. Anyway no complaints as they are assiting the govt.