Yunyan district takes steps to ensure safety of cold chain food

Staff members from Yunyan district's market supervision and administration bureau check cold chain food items. [Photo/ddcpc.cn]

The market supervision and administration bureau of Yunyan district in Guiyang, the capital of Southwest China's Guizhou province, has recently focused its attention on cold chain food to strengthen COVID-19 pandemic prevention and control and ensure food safety.

The bureau is carrying out daily patrols, and 16 sub-bureaus are conducting daily inspections on key cold storage facilities in the district.

Cold chain food items must have customs inspection and quarantine certificates, nucleic acid test certificates, disinfection certificates and supplier qualification certificates. These foods must also be transported by special personnel through unique channels, stored at special facilities and sold in select areas.

Sellers are required to wear masks and protective gloves to avoid direct contact with imported cold chain food, according to Wang Mei, director of the bureau's food safety supervision and administration department.

Wang added that Yunyan district organized its health bureau, commerce bureau and agriculture and rural affairs bureau to conduct special inspections of cold chain food items in January.

Yunyan district currently has 113 cold storage merchants, with 225 cold storage facilities and 1,079 employees.

Since July 2020, more than 10 inspections have been carried on imported cold chain food, and all food items without nucleic acid test certificates were reported to the health department. All these food items were then tested, and the results came back negative, according to Wang.

The bureau has also issued a work plan to strengthen cold chain food supervision and management under the normalized COVID-19 prevention and control measures and urged all departments to ensure food safety.