COVID & food packaging: China raises its defenses against imported frozen food, again

China is reinforcing its supervision of imported frozen food due to the recent spread of the virus in India and the new COVID-19 cases in China.

Following the government’s iron fist against imported goods in January, China is now focusing again on frozen food products that could expose citizens to virus particles. In Chinese trade hubs, they are setting up several warehouses to control and inspect imported cold-chain food using nucleic acid tests. Unsafe and contaminated products could be destroyed immediately. Despite the fact that COVID-19 cases involving frozen food are very rare, China’s government is maintaining the same firm attitude it has taken since the Wuhan outbreak. Inspection methods are still improving: instead of the 20 quarantine days in the winter of 2020, China warehouses now have an average wait time of 10 days. In the past, spotted contamination could have resulted in the destruction of the entire lot; now, it is possible to identify and possibly destroy the only infected product.  

Because of the slowdown in the production and distribution chains, as well as the widespread skepticism about frozen food safety, imports are only 20% of what they were pre-COVID-19. Nevertheless, a full recovery of the imported frozen goods trade is expected in the first half of 2022, the government stated.      

Source:  

https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202105/1223598.shtml    

To learn more:  

https://affidiajournal.com/en/food-packaging-and-the-threat-of-sars-cov-2