China will punish the production and sale of unsafe food products more harshly to combat increasingly severe food scandals, judicial authorities said on Friday.
The Supreme People's Court (SPC) and the Supreme People's Procuratorate have issued interpretations that specify crimes related to food safety and set standards for the punishment for these crimes, court spokesman Sun Jungong told a press conference.
The explanations are believed to form a more rigorous system to punish crimes that threaten food safety, he said.
"The food safety situation is still very grave, because the number of crimes undermining food safety has been climbing with notorious cases related to food safety occurring now and then," he said, citing particular cases involving the use of chemicals while processing meat products and the production of toxic bean sprouts.
Food safety scandals in China have emerged one after another in recent years.
In the melamine-tainted infant formula scandal in 2008, at least six children died and 300,000 fell ill.
Pork adulterated with clenbuterol, cooking oil recycled from leftovers in restaurant kitchens, pork from diseased pigs and toxic gelatin for medicine capsule production have all been found by police in recent years, with the latest case involving making fake mutton and beef from rat, fox and mink by adding chemicals.
These crimes have severely harmed public health, economic order and society, Sun added.
Some 2,088 people were punished between 2010 and 2012 in 1,533 food safety cases. The number of such cases grew exponentially in the three years.
The number of poisonous food cases tried by Chinese courts rose from 80 in 2010 to 861 in 2012, Sun said.
A selection of typical cases involving food-related crimes were published by the Supreme People's Court on Friday.
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