Local court urges greater supervision of online food sales

Shanghai No. 3 Intermediate People’s Court is calling for tougher supervision of foods and beverages sold online.

The intermediate court has handled 66 criminal cases related to food safety in the past two years, and 1,169 civil disputes with the Shanghai Railway Transport Court, the intermediate court announced on Tuesday.

More than 60 percent of these civil cases are in connection with online food sales. Involved products included common items like wine, tea, chocolate and milk powder as well as health products such as ginseng and fish oil.

Qu Furong, deputy head of the intermediate court, said they are also considering filing procuratorial suggestions regarding online food security to third-party shopping platforms based on their cases in order to encourage improvement.

According to a white paper issued by the court, types of food-related crimes include reprocessing expired food for sale, unlicensed food production and sales, using excessive additives, using non-food ingredients when producing food, and selling food purchased overseas without following quarantine procedures.

The intermediate court claims that many food producers have limited awareness of food safety laws and third-party online shopping platforms only loosely supervise food products.

In one case disclosed by the court on Tuesday, a man surnamed Jiang bought two bottles of "gold leaf" liquor from the Taobao store of a Tangshan-based wine and spirits company at a price of 2,800 yuan (US$390) each on March 3, 2017.

Three days later, he mailed the bottles to his friend as a gift but was told that gold leaf is prohibited from being put into food.

Jiang then searched online and found a document issued by the National Health Commission, which banned gold leaf from being used as an ingredient or additive.

Jiang brought the company to court, demanding it return his payment plus tenfold compensation. He won the suit but the company appealed. The two sides finally reached an agreement after mediation.

Since it was established in December 2014, the Shanghai No. 3 Intermediate People’s Court has been responsible for first instances of the city's major criminal food safety cases and second instances of such cases whose first instance was dealt with by district courts.

Starting from May 1, 2017, the Shanghai Railway Transport Court was assigned to first instances civil food safety disputes occurring in Minhang, Xuhui, Huangpu and Yangpu districts when the No. 3 intermediate court was placed in charged of these cases’ second instances, as well as certain other major civil food safety cases.