Well-known Chinese news site Sohu recently reported that the top management at Wal-Mart China met recently with officials from the China Food and Drug Administration (CFDA). The management called for the scope of government monitoring of food labeling to be extended. Currently the CFDA only regulates retailers on food labeling but not manufacturers. In the past few years, a number of retailers have run into trouble because they were held responsible for the unsafe food that suppliers had provided. The best effort retailers can make for now is to ensure that the government correctly licenses these suppliers. The food quality is largely dependent on the supplier’s honesty. Retailers have been inspecting a certain number of samples of the food that the manufacturers supply, but this by no means covers the full range of the products they offer in stores. It is widely believed that end-to-end food safety control is required, especially on the source side, which includes suppliers. The cost for retailers to do a full-scale food inspection would be too high and unreasonable.
Source: Sohu.com, April 17, 2014
http://business.sohu.com/20140417/n398411268.shtml