(The picture comes from the network)
Text | Yi Buer
Source | Mantis Finance (ID: TanglangFin)
In a society where "people take food as the sky", eating is a top priority, but "food is safe first" and eating safely is more important than anything.
Moreover, at any time, issues related to food safety can trigger an industry earthquake.
Just like before, Yonghui, China Resources Vanguard, Walmart and other large supermarkets failed to pass the sampling inspection, and consumers yelled at the world ’s top 500 and they dared not trust them anymore. The back kitchen broadcasts a big screen; the appearance of "cadmium rice" and "cadmium seafood" has also pushed the online grocery shopping platform to the forefront ...
How to treat these frequent food safety issues?
First of all, it is clear that no company is innocent in the face of food safety issues. But instead of staring at the company to make a statement, you might as well enlarge the perspective to see how the problem arises and how to improve it, so that the food industry can get out of the plight of safety issues as soon as possible.
No one wants to be "cadmium", but it is a problem in the industry
Whenever a food safety issue is exposed, consumers' first reaction is probably: life is in dire straits.
Just like before, "Southern Metropolis Daily" reported that Yonghui, China Resources Vanguard, Wal-mart and other large supermarket chains had multiple categories of food safety issues. The highest-voting comment said: "The people who watch are frightened. The food you eat is not non-toxic! Experts tell the people that it is safe to go to the supermarket to buy things! The people pay high prices to the supermarket for health and listen to the experts. The result is to beat the experts' faces and hurt the hearts of the people! "
In fact, the food safety problem has always existed, and it is still an industry problem that has not been solved well. No matter whether it is a small vegetable farm or a large supermarket, even the chickens, fish, and vegetables that are raised in rural areas cannot be guaranteed to be safe.
In the Nandu report, vegetables and aquatic products with heavy metal cadmium exceeding the standard are the "severe disaster areas" for food safety issues.
No matter whether it is an enterprise or a consumer, no one wants to be "cadmium", but, after the problem arises, before the accountability, we might as well look at how "cadmium rice" and "cadmium seafood" come from.
A long time ago, Sun Baoguo, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, said about food safety issues: "The raw material link in food production is very negligible. For food safety, the safety of food raw materials has a greater impact, and food from source pollution The safety risk is no less than the food processing process, and problems such as cadmium rice, melamine milk powder, lean and lean are all in the raw material link. "
Indeed, when food safety problems occur, people are most easily noticed by the most intuitive purchase link, but they often overlook the problems caused by source pollution.
Now, how serious is cadmium pollution in water and soil alone?
According to public data, the area of arable land contaminated by heavy metals such as cadmium, lead and chromium is nearly 20 million hm2, accounting for about 20% of the total arable land area. The average annual amount of food contaminated by heavy metals is 12 million tons. 10,000 hm2, with an annual output of agricultural products exceeding cadmium exceeding 1.5 million tons.
The "2019 Shanghai Food Safety White Paper Release" also shows that in foods with a low pass rate for food safety evaluation and sampling, the main problem is that the aquatic products such as shrimp crustaceans, port crab and other crustacean seafood heavy metal cadmium exceeds the standard, and the food After monitoring the pollutants and harmful factors, it was found that the pollution at the source of the food caused by environmental pollution is more prominent.
Everyone wants to eat healthy and rest assured, but in front of them, food safety has been trapped in environmental pollution.
Problems occur frequently, without "innocent snowflakes"
However, for the current development status, it is not a one-day effort to solve the food safety problems caused by environmental pollution, even if the media's spotlight has always been on these issues.
From the perspective of "Mantis Finance", there are three reasons.
First, the rapid development of industry and the guarantee of environmental quality cannot escape the "environmental Kuznets curve".
The well-known environmental Kuznets curve shows such a phenomenon. When a country's economic development level is low, the degree of environmental pollution is lighter, but with the increase of per capita income, the degree of environmental degradation is exacerbated with economic growth. After the economic development reaches a certain level, with the further increase in per capita income, environmental pollution has increased from high to low, the degree of environmental pollution has gradually slowed down, and environmental quality has gradually improved.
That is to say, a country's economic rise and environmental development are all in the process of economic development. The environment first suffers from industrial pollution, and then it is governed after paying a heavy ecological price.
For example, the name of the "Fog City" in London, the photochemical pollution incident in Los Angeles, the Minamata Disease in Japan and other "four major pollution" incidents ... These all confirm the environmental Kuznets curve.
Although China has repeatedly learned the lessons of Western countries and tried to avoid the old path of "pollution first, then governance", it still cannot completely eliminate the environmental pollution problem in industrial development. Therefore, it is difficult to find food safety problems caused by environmental pollution sources. avoid.
Secondly, the "invisible" industrial chain lacks standards and regulations.
"It may not be the supply chain that makes you famous at once, but the supply chain can make you lose ground." This sentence can be applied in any industry.
In the food industry, especially the raw materials of fresh vegetables and fruits, every process from planting, production, purchasing and transportation is extremely complicated, and it is very difficult to standardize.
Just like the five-changing rice that consumers love to eat, walking from a seed to the consumer's table requires quality control through multiple links such as technology selection, green planting, field management, constant temperature storage, and embryo processing. It's just production. And, compared to fish, shrimp and shellfish aquatic ingredients, rice is already a relatively standard product.
Moreover, according to industry insiders: "Many links in the food industry need to be operated manually, and there will be risks in places where there are people. Some" invisible "links will be considered as compliant if they are not found."
There is no uniform standard, and there is a long chain, coupled with the need to rely on human operations, the food ingredients produced from contaminated soil and water flow to the market.
Finally, the speed and scale of the rise of food companies in the new economy have exacerbated the operational risks of the entire industry.
Taking advantage of the Internet, Yonghui Supermarket, Jingdong Fresh, Meituan Grocery, Hema Fresh, Daily Premium, Dingdong Grocery, and other new economic food companies have sprung up and appeared in consumers ’lives. in.
When these companies seize the market with convenience, it is precisely the food industry from the opaque traditional supermarkets, vegetable markets, to the transparent Internet market, and has become the current new outlet.
The speed and scale are large, and the problem of unqualified food mentioned above has also begun to occur frequently: those food ingredients that are contaminated at the source have escaped the non-standard industrial chain and eventually broke out in the terminal channel.
However, any new things cannot avoid problems at the beginning, but no one can make consumers see a comprehensive model in a short time.
When an enterprise wants to balance risks and benefits, governance while developing becomes a necessary way, and the operational risks of the entire industry will be exposed in a glance during the rapid development process.
Food safety dilemma, non-zero-sum game is the solution
"In an avalanche, no snowflake is innocent." Every "sinful snowflake" needs to be held accountable, but at the same time, we must seek a solution. "Mantis Finance" believes that breakthroughs can be attempted at the level of consumers, companies and markets.
For consumers, it is necessary to be alert to being brought into the irrational expression by the "halo effect".
Now many consumers, when they hear about food safety problems, they directly target the enterprise, without any proof, they directly shouted the slogan of "down" and sent it to the mouth of the "tiger of public opinion".
Consumers' anger and grievances are completely understandable, and they also need a "target" to carry their emotions. Enterprises are not innocent when they are criticized and scolded.
However, one thing that needs to be clarified is that after the "halo effect" dominates and the enterprise is "eaten up" by public opinion, can the problem be completely solved? In fact, sometimes, the enterprise that has direct contact with consumers may be the most critical breakthrough to solve the problem.
For an enterprise, the image may be "distorted" under public opinion, but the behavior must be "true."
Even if food safety is a problem for the entire industry, companies should also bear the social responsibility they should have. Even under the name of infamy, the corporate image may be "distorted", but the behavior of promoting industry progress should be "true."
Industry benchmarking companies such as Yonghui Supermarket, Hema Xiansheng, and Daily Excellent Fresh have all been infamous for food safety-related issues, but while developing, the pace of governance has not been neglected.
For example, Hema Xiansheng, "to achieve more than 50% of its own brand in three years" to promote the "Hema brand" to become an industry standard, and, in terms of product traceability, has completed the origin traceability system of agricultural products, aquatic products in Guangzhou has realized the "one fish one yard" for each freshwater fish; Shanghai and Shenzhen have also completed the traceability system for some freshwater fish species.
For the market, it is necessary to rectify the environment and supervise the industry.
On the one hand, when environmental pollution has affected food safety, it is urgent to solve the problem at the source. On the other hand, in addition to legislation to rectify the environment, it is also necessary to strengthen supervision of the entire industry.
In addition, environmental governance and industry supervision must be under the leadership of the government to achieve social co-governance in order to achieve better. The media, the public, and companies can each take their own responsibilities and share them to achieve better results.
For example, in early 2020, the Ministry of Ecology and Environment has issued the "Water Quality Standards for Freshwater Aquatic Organisms-Cadmium" (2020 version). Under this guideline, companies will act in accordance with the standards to achieve information disclosure, while the media and all sectors of society will do a good job So, I believe that under the Internet weapon, the problem of water pollution is expected to be improved.
In fact, no one wants to have food safety problems, but the development of things is never perfect, and when problems occur, only "non-zero-sum game" cooperation, joint efforts to solve the problem, the "pollution dilemma" of food safety The break will surely be just around the corner.
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