When you buy food in the supermarket, including many brand-name foods, the shelf life and other information can be changed by simple means.

Some merchants in Hunan borrowed "props" such as printing machinery and toxic chemicals to tamper with the shelf life of food.

20 13 At the end of May, a distributor in Guangdong called the production date stamped on its packaging bag "old-fashioned" and suggested that it should be code-sprayed to change the "appearance".

According to the dealer's instructions, "Fun Music" bought an inkjet printer and arranged for two female workers to erase the printed production date with "potion" and replace it with a new date. Unexpectedly, the two women workers didn't know to wear gloves. After several days of alteration, their hands were corroded by "potion" and big blisters appeared. Later, they had an argument with the factory because of the treatment and other issues, and finally the matter was exposed.

The funny food factory changed the date of food production and changed the shelf life of food with "liquid medicine" at will. The so-called "potion" mainly includes "banana oil" (isoamyl acetate) and paint thinner. These compounds are flammable and toxic, which can damage human skin, throat, bronchus, lungs and even nervous system. It is an "open secret" in the industry to alter the shelf life with "potion".

According to the guidance of Liuyang quality supervision personnel, the reporter made an experiment. First buy ice cream, cooked food, dried fruit, carbonated drinks, fruit juice, tea, etc. from large foreign supermarkets, and then go to the market to buy "potions". In a paint shop, the reporter easily spent 3 yuan's money and bought 300 ml of paint "thinner" in an abandoned medical infusion bottle.

Dip a cotton swab in the "thinner" and gently smear the production date and product batch number in different fonts on various "big-name" food packages. Within a few seconds, the reporter witnessed the "miracle": whether it is plastic bags, aluminum cans or cartons, the production date has basically been erased.

It's easy to erase it, but it's not difficult to print it again. Manufacturers can easily buy coding machines, inkjet printers, inkjet printers that can be installed on the production line, and the price is more than 20,000 yuan, which does not pose an obvious burden to manufacturers.

A supplier said that whether it is printed or sprayed, as long as ink is used, it can be altered. The printed time information can be adjusted at will within three years before the expired food is listed, which is very harmful. Bacteria that were originally controlled within a safe range may be "geometrically enlarged" through reproduction. And "health killers" such as Salmonella, Shigella and Staphylococcus aureus, which should not exist originally, will also take advantage of it.

Consumers can protect their rights by checking whether the production date is "vague" and whether there is "ink color and dark color" around the printing date. Some insiders admit that with the "upgrade" of alteration means, these identification technologies have basically failed. A more effective countermeasure is to use laser coding machine to "burn" information such as production date on the packaging with laser.

But for the "laser machine", the main reason why many manufacturers in the food industry stay away from it is that the cost is too high, and the price is about twice that of the equipment using ink. At the same time, the production efficiency is lower than that of "ink machine", which will affect the production capacity of enterprises.

To this end, some large companies in the food industry adopt the attitude of "internal control risk" on the date of alteration: add special codes to the information such as production date, and one code only corresponds to one batch of products. In this way, when the product date is altered and there is a quality dispute, the enterprise will provide evidence to seek exemption. However, after enterprises seek "immunity", consumers are still kept in the dark and become the biggest victims. To prevent food from "never expiring", we must treat both the symptoms and root causes.

The problem of "distortion" of food shelf life is becoming one of the most prominent food safety hazards, and the regulatory authorities urgently need to take measures combining "technical defense" with "civil air defense" to comprehensively curb it.

China's general food labeling standards have been used for many years, and some places have obviously lagged behind the development of the industry. At present, on the one hand, we should adopt a licensing system to standardize the production of food coding machines and smearing agents; On the other hand, higher requirements are put forward for the technology and content of food packaging and printing, so as to curb the "date game" from the source.

A common "trading rule" in the field of food circulation is that merchants reject the remaining 1/3 shelf life of packaged food, and the remaining 2/3 shelf life food is included in the promotion target. However, the goods that eventually expire will often be returned to the manufacturer, and the loss will be borne by the manufacturer. This unreasonable distribution system makes it possible for manufacturers to falsify the shelf life of food.

The regulatory authorities should implement standard contracts in the circulation field to prohibit expired food from returning to the manufacturers, and the related losses should be borne by supermarkets and manufacturers.

Dealing with expired food can learn from foreign practices and introduce a "third-party mechanism". Support "third party" enterprises to make expired food into feed and fertilizer, or ferment and produce biogas as industrial energy. "This will enable about 70% of expired food to be recycled."

Professor Zheng Fengtian from Renmin University of China suggested that the regulatory authorities should refer to international experience and require domestic food packaging to be marked with "sales period", leaving room for consumers to eat and store after purchase; Mark the "best tasting period" and specify the best time for food taste or quality; Mark the "edible period" and indicate the last edible date of the food; Print "sealed packaging date" to facilitate problem investigation.

According to the national conditions, social forces must be mobilized at this stage to encourage the exposure of the "shady" food industry.

China's current Consumer Protection Law, Food Safety Law and other laws and regulations have no clear support for' Wang Hai-style' professional counterfeiting. Only the supervision of the whole society can make all kinds of "crooked ways" have nowhere to hide. "