Guard "Food Safety at the Tip of the Tongue" - Enterprises Courageously Shoulder the Main Responsibility

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■ Jiao Yue

The chaos in the production of popular chicken feet exposed by CCTV’s “3.15” evening show once again brings food safety—a vital public concern—into the spotlight. “Eat with confidence” is a basic need of people’s livelihood and a rigid promise that the food industry must fulfill. In my view, food safety issues result from multiple factors, including corporate responsibility failures, imbalanced industry chain interests, and regulatory blind spots. To build a solid food safety barrier, three areas must be addressed.

First, upgrade full-chain supervision, strengthen the “protective net,” and fill regulatory gaps.

The chaos in problematic food reveals the characteristics of the food industry—scattered production, covert channels, and long supply chains—and exposes shortcomings in traditional segmented regulation. Therefore, a comprehensive, multi-dimensional regulatory system must be established to achieve closed-loop management throughout the entire process: before, during, and after production.

Before production, strict access control is essential—rigorously review the qualifications, hygiene conditions, and safety management systems of food producers to eliminate non-compliant companies at the source; during production, implement dynamic monitoring—relying on big data, artificial intelligence, and other technologies to monitor online sales data and offline production processes in real-time, accurately detect risk signals, and enable early discovery and response; after production, enforce strict accountability—impose maximum penalties on involved companies, seize illegal products, recover illegal gains, and thoroughly investigate upstream supply chains to cut off illegal supply, illegal processing, and black market flows, making violators pay a heavy price.

Additionally, a cross-regional supervision and enforcement mechanism should be established to facilitate remote inspections, law enforcement coordination, and information sharing. A comprehensive food safety traceability system must be built to track food from raw material procurement to table consumption, ensuring full traceability and making violations impossible to hide.

Second, reinforce corporate responsibility and rebuild trust through a “conscientious industry.”

The core of food safety lies in corporate responsibility and integrity. The exposed cases include companies pursuing low costs and high profits at the expense of legality.

As the primary responsible party, companies must prioritize safety over profits. Large enterprises should set industry benchmarks by establishing standardized production systems, strictly controlling quality inspection processes, and leading industry upgrades; small and medium-sized enterprises should abandon rough management, increase investment in equipment and hygiene controls, and actively accept social supervision.

Furthermore, a food industry credit system should be established—record violations in a credit information platform, implement tiered and categorized regulation, and create a blacklist for seriously illegal producers and operators. Penalties should be enforced against dishonest companies, with “one violation, restrictions everywhere.” Credit status should be linked to financing and market access, offering policy support to trustworthy enterprises, turning credit into a “hard currency” for development. Industry associations need to strengthen self-discipline, promote industry standards, conduct compliance training, and foster a market mechanism of “quality for premium price,” pushing non-compliant companies out and safeguarding industry health.

Third, activate social co-governance, making “public supervision” a safety barrier.

Food safety governance is not a one-party show but a systematic effort involving regulators, enterprises, and consumers working together. Relevant departments should streamline complaint and reporting channels, simplify procedures, increase rewards, and encourage consumers to participate actively in supervision. Through science-based publicity, promote food safety knowledge, enhance consumers’ ability to identify risks, and guide rational consumption.

Consumers, as direct stakeholders and the most powerful supervisors, should upgrade their awareness—avoid blindly following trends, prioritize products with complete qualifications and clear traceability, and use their purchasing choices to push industry quality improvements.

People rely on food, and safety comes first. Protecting the public’s “safety on the tip of the tongue” is an ongoing effort, not a one-time task. Only with zero-tolerance discipline, comprehensive chain management to fill gaps, and long-term mechanisms to uphold bottom lines can we ensure that people eat with confidence, peace of mind, and comfort, leading the food industry onto a healthy and sustainable development path.

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Editor: Gao Jia