Impact of Food Traders Cut corners on Public Health and Food Safety

Enzo / Food Safety Specialist in Japan, Long-term focus on food safety in Asia

Motivation

Nowadays, most people have the habit of eating out because of work and school. However, in recent years, food safety problems have emerged endlessly, such as tincture oil, melamine milk powder, toxic starch, plasticizers, and the fenponi "poison egg" that broke out this year And other major food safety incidents have made consumers worry about whether the food they eat is really safe. From the above incidents, it can be seen that Taiwan still has many deficiencies in food safety management. The most dissatisfied society is that judges will judge whether they violate the "Food Safety Law" based on "whether it is harmful to human health." There are cases of "seeing, but not punishing".

An Economic Perspective of Business Cut-offs

   Businessmen are very valuable from an economic point of view. Every step from raw material transportation to food processing to final sales requires costs. Factors that affect costs include the balance of supply and demand in the market and the reasonable profit of food sales. Under the good market mechanism, traders can use reasonable raw materials for processing. What happens if the market supply and demand do not reach a balance today? The price of goods in the sales market is already lower than the cost of the original raw materials and the processing and value-added activities of the merchant. Forcing businessmen to not reduce the cost of raw materials, in order to make money, they will choose things with lower processing costs to process, and then make profits between them, but the use of such "low-cost processed products" may cause human health to be affected , So people have been nicknamed the "black-hearted businessman".

From a legal point of view, the businessman cut corners

    The government has established laws to establish relevant standards, such as food processing standards, food additive standards, and food marketing and labeling standards. Merchants can sell inferior goods by category, or sell food that is about to expire. For example, tofu in miso soup, you can use poorly sold tofu instead of beautifully packaged tofu. This selection can indeed reduce production costs, or improve the processing method. If the merchants all meet the above standards, and the government agencies have actual law enforcement, such as auditing and enforcement, this will increase the public's trust in food and the government . So the merchant did not meet the relevant standards and the method of reducing costs was improper? For example, the contents of sales products are not clearly marked, things that should not be added, inappropriate methods, such as using industrial catalysts to accelerate production time However, it may cause harm to health, or change the shelf life at will. These improper methods will cause bad foods, and then leave the human body in an unhealthy state.

Conclusion

    From the above two perspectives, similar conclusions can be drawn: everything that a businessman does costs, because of market factors, reducing production costs. If a reasonable and legal processing method is selected and the government has conducted a rigorous review, people will have a sense of trust; if an unreasonable processing method is used, it may affect human health. This is a virtuous circle and a vicious circle. I prefer a virtuous circle. In this era of food for all, in order to eat at ease, the cooperation of consumers, businessmen, and the government is required to minimize the impact of food safety issues.