Student stirs pot with food-safety website

(Ecns.cn) -- A postgraduate student has established a website to expose and track China's problematic food safety issues using reliable sources, a move that has drawn widespread attention and propelled him to Internet stardom, reports the Beijing Times.

The website was launched in June of last year by Wu Heng, 26, a young man majoring in history at Shanghai's Fudan University, and has proved so successful that it has crashed several times due to an overload of visits. Wu was even invited to meet with the Shanghai Food Safety Commission.

According to Wu, he named the website Zhichuchuangwai (www.zccw.info), which translates into "throw it out the window," a reference to his disgust after finding out that his favorite "beef" dish was in fact made from pork processed with special additives.

Tracking a troubled industry

Like his classmates at Wuhan University, Wu never imagined he would be affected by tainted food while studying as an undergraduate.

However, after he started his postgraduate studies, Wu realized that food safety problems were not so easily avoided when a news report about a scandal involving fake beef hit close to home – Wu's favorite dish was rice with braised beef.

Wu seldom eats it now though, and has since launched his own campaign to gather more information about food safety incidents. The results have shocked him.

To heighten public awareness of problematic food, Wu paid 600 yuan (US$95) for a year's access to a server and called together 33 volunteers from across the nation to establish the website. Between 2004 and 2011, the site documented 2,849 food problems with detailed news reports and the number of victims.

Wu recalled that within 17 days he and the volunteers read through 17,268 news reports of food safety scandals and found problems everywhere, including milk, oil, dumplings, bean sprouts and myriad others.

The project did not attract much attention at the beginning; but earlier this month the toxic medical capsule incident suddenly boosted the site's popularity, noted Wu, attracting two million visits from May 3 to May 7.

Incorruptible

As the website became more popular, Wu said he was contacted by numerous investors and corrupt businessmen, yet he has declined all of their proposals because he believes the website must remain non-commercial.

Various food producers even sent representatives to ask what it would cost to delete unfavorable reports about them, as if he had set up the site to reap quick profits, complained Wu.

Wu said his pursuit is simple enough: he hopes to expose and shame problematic food manufacturers and arouse public attention. Many people are like frogs in warm water, he said, and they don't care about repeated food safety scandals, even if they are eating tainted food.

In the future, each web user will be able to contribute to the site without registration, said Wu, as long as he or she has reliable sources. Currently the website employs a team of volunteers to examine and verify all contributions.

Wu has remained cautious about the site's development. One of his friends advised him to add a new function which would allow users to search for food safety scandals by company or brand name, an idea that Wu eventually rejected.

The website functions as media, so it can be involved in reputation infringement cases under certain conditions, commented Si Weijiang, deputy secretary general of the Commission on Intellectual Property Rights at the All China Lawyers Association.

And although the website only reposts news reports from other media, enterprises have the right to sue it if the reports are groundless, warned Si.

Government must step up

Wu created the website because he has a strong sense of social responsibility, but he said he is constantly disappointed when the same problems continue to recur.

Milk formula is a typical example. From 2008 to 2011, formula was never spared from food safety scandals; only the brands changed, he said.

And although the government has put much effort into food safety management, the enforcement of regulations is still far from satisfactory, added Wu. Our country needs a system to consolidate management, which should be more effective than diffusion of power among different departments, he suggested.

Moreover, current punitive actions are not enough to deter predatory businessmen, since in most cases they only face small fines if caught.

On the website, Wu has released a report on food safety in China for last year, claiming it is the first to be compiled by ordinary citizens. According to that report, Shanghai ranked the fourth worst city for food safety. Beijing ranked the worst.