National People's Congress Deputy and Chairman of Xiangjia Co., Ltd. Yu Ziwen: Implementing Whole-Chain Regulation and Further Improving Edible Oil Safety Standards

This year’s National People’s Congress and the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, National People’s Congress Deputy and Xiangjia Co., Ltd. Chairman Yu Ziweng called for further improvement of safety standards for edible vegetable oils to better protect the people’s “safety on the tip of the tongue” and the safety of livestock, poultry, and aquatic farming industries.

Yu Ziweng believes that currently, China’s safety regulation for edible vegetable oils still faces issues such as outdated standards and missing indicators. There is a need to further improve the standards system and strengthen full-chain supervision. He suggests including plasticizers, sex hormones, illegal additives, and characteristic markers of waste oils into mandatory testing items for edible vegetable oils, with clear limits and judgment rules. At the same time, oils used in feed, food processing, and catering should be subject to consistent standards and strict control to prevent recycled oil from flowing into farming and food production.

The edible oil industry generally features production, sales, and usage across different regions. Cases related to substandard oils are often complicated by jurisdiction overlaps, making criminal cases difficult to prosecute, administrative penalties hard to enforce, and civil compensation challenging.

In response, Yu Ziweng recommends implementing a “single code, one report, one traceability” system for edible vegetable oils, where inspection reports are linked with traceability codes, enabling real-time verification by regulatory authorities and purchasing companies to prevent forged invoices and reports from the source. Additionally, all information from production, processing, procurement, transportation, to usage should be integrated into the national food safety traceability platform to ensure traceability of sources, destinations, and accountability.

“For cases involving large amounts, wide harm, and forged documents related to unsafe edible vegetable oils, it is recommended to establish cross-regional market supervision, public security, and agriculture joint investigation mechanisms, and directly transfer cases to public security authorities for criminal responsibility under charges such as manufacturing and selling counterfeit products or fraud,” Yu Ziweng stated.

Furthermore, to address the potential entry of waste oils like gutter oil into the food industry and agricultural production chains, Yu Ziweng suggests establishing rapid identification indicators for gutter oil at the standard-setting level, incorporating characteristic fatty acids, oxidation products, and pollutants into national standards to enable “one-test identification and outright rejection,” providing testing and judgment basis for quality inspection departments and units. On the regulatory front, the national level can conduct routine risk monitoring, issue timely alerts, and revise standards as needed.

“Edible vegetable oil is a basic necessity for food production, livestock, poultry, aquatic farming, and daily life. Its quality and safety directly relate to food safety, livestock and poultry production safety, and public health,” Yu Ziweng emphasized. “We must resolutely prevent substandard oils like gutter oil from entering the food industry and agricultural chains to effectively safeguard the people’s ‘safety on the tip of the tongue’ and the safety of livestock, poultry, and aquatic farming industries.”

(Reporter: Zhang Yifan, Securities Times)

(Edited by: Wen Jing)

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