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Alice Yan

A food factory in China has been exposed for making popular chicken feet snacks using chemicals in unhygienic conditions.
The factory soaked the chicken in harmful hydrogen peroxide, sparking public outrage and thrusting the country’s food safety record back under the spotlight.
In the annual Consumers’ Right Day Show broadcast by state media CCTV on March 15, the Mingyang Food Company in Chengdu, in southwestern Sichuan province, was revealed to have serious food safety problems.
According to an undercover report by the media outlet, the workshop smelled, had sewage deposits on its floor and the production equipment was covered with greasy dirt.

Raw chicken feet were piled on the wet, dirty ground next to cleaning tools.
Before the chicken feet were processed, they were decolourised in the hydrogen peroxide liquid.
The chemical is normally used for disinfection.
China bans its use in food production because not only will it damage the nutritional value of the food, it will cause health damage to those who consume it over a long period.
Workers at the factory admitted they had never eaten the chicken feet they produced and suggested the reporter not eat it too.

After the scandal was exposed, Sichuan Provincial Market Supervision Bureau launched an investigation into the Mingyang Food Company, as well as a wider food safety overhaul.
The incident came in the wake of a statement from the market authority in Xuancheng, central Anhui province, on March 15, which said it is investigating malpractice at the Nanjiang Food Company in the region.
The company was exposed by Jiangsu TV for baking crispy rice near shoe insoles and grubby gloves.
The crispy rice, known as guo ba in Chinese, was being sold long before the scandal erupted.
China is never short of food scares.
Earlier this month, a court in Hangzhou, Zhejiang province in eastern China, sentenced a barbecue restaurant boss to an undisclosed jail term for substituting beef and mutton with duck in dishes.

The sales revenue from the fake meat reached 190,000 yuan (US$28,000), found the court.
In 2024, a Shanghai restaurant was fined 50,000 yuan for adding nitrite to enhance dishes.
Other food scandals included the use of spoiled meat in the canteen of the privately run Changfeng Secondary School in Kunming, southwestern Yunnan province in 2024. Parents staged a massive protest after discovering the problem.
The school’s headmaster was dismissed, several education officials were suspended from their position while the canteen’s operator was fined 5.8 million yuan (US$842,000).
Another incident that attracted attention unfolded in 2023 at a canteen at a college in Nanchang of eastern Jiangxi province, which used a mouse head in its dish as duck neck.
The canteen’s operating company was fined seven million yuan and two college heads were dismissed.

Liu Junhai, a law professor from China Renmin University, said frequent food safety problems were caused by the fact that producers found that the benefits from breaching the law exceeded the costs they would need to bear for the violation.
“Many food practitioners have this mindset,” Liu told the Legal Daily. “I suggest the authorities increase the punishments for these violations.”
The scholar added that the authority should adopt a “zero tolerance” attitude.
Besides administrative punishment, the government could consider raising the civil compensation and criminal penalty to let the lawbreakers pay a heavy price, said Liu.
Mainland social media has been abuzz over the latest food scares.
“China’s food safety issue can only be solved through media exposure. Where are the market supervisory officials?” one online observer said.
“The law violation cost is too low. As the public forgets such sensational news, the violators continue their malpractices. Nothing changed,” said another.


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China food scandals: factories use smelly insoles, chemically bleached chicken feet to make snacks

A factory in China has been exposed for soaking chicken feet in hydrogen peroxide to create spicy snacks amid previous food safety scandals that included using smelly insoles in crispy rice production.       Photo: SCMP composite/Shutterstock/CCTV

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People & Culture

Foul-smelling production facility with sewage deposits on floor, harmful use of hydrogen peroxide spark official investigation


Foul-smelling production facility with sewage deposits on floor, harmful use of hydrogen peroxide spark official investigation.


China food safety

Renmin University of China

China food scandals: factories use smelly insoles, chemically bleached chicken feet to make snacks

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}Foul-smelling production facility with sewage deposits on floor, harmful use of hydrogen peroxide spark official investigation

Foul-smelling production facility with sewage deposits on floor, harmful use of hydrogen peroxide spark official investigation