China is facing fresh food safety controversy after a food-safety blogger, who previously exposed formaldehyde-treated cabbage in Hebei, uploaded video showing a processing site in Qingyuan, Guangdong, buying fresh bamboo shoots and curing them with burning sulfur in a remote mountain location. Mainland outlets including Xinmin Evening News and The Paper reported that the footage showed crude conditions and thick white smoke, with witnesses describing the fumes as pungent and irritating to the respiratory tract.
Following the video’s spread online, Qingyuan’s market regulation bureau confirmed the site was found to match what was shown, said the case is under further investigation, and thanked media and internet users for their oversight.
The episode has drawn pointed commentary from state-run outlet Guangming Daily Online, which argued the incident is another blow to consumer confidence and an implicit indictment of regulators, asking why it is consistently ordinary internet users, rather than authorities, who uncover such problems. The commentary noted a repeating pattern behind recent vegetable safety cases: tips from netizens, on-the-ground investigation by independent bloggers, online public pressure, and only then regulatory action. It questioned whether authorities had received prior tips and failed to act, and suggested that if no one had reported concerns to regulators at all, that itself reflects a troubling public preference for trusting independent bloggers over official channels. The piece concluded that when local authorities are slow to detect — or altogether unaware of — food safety problems, it signals a serious structural gap in China’s food safety system.
Source: Central News Agency (Taiwan), September 20, 2026
https://www.cna.com.tw/news/acn/202609200025.aspx