By Han Jun and Hou Maoge

Approximately one hundred days remain before the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games commence. Is China ready to serve Olympic food? During an exclusive interview on April 11 with China.org.cn, food safety expert Professor Cai Tongyi talked about the Olympic food safety guarantee system and other Olympic catering issues.

The Beijing Olympic food safety system almost established

According to Prof. Cai Tongyi, the Beijing Olympics Experts Committee for Food Safety was set up in July 2005 with the primary task of drafting an action plan for Beijing Olympic food safety, with the core being the establishment of an Olympic food safety guarantee system. To date, the system has almost been fully implemented. The program has four features:

First, a raw material food tracing system promotes a bi-directional path, stemming either from farming field to table or from table to field. If any problem occurs, its cause can be found quickly. This supervisory tracing system records the growing process in the fields: the kinds of crops and when the crops are nourished, including the pesticides or fertilizers. Establishing a tracing system has been extremely difficult but is currently complete due to constant adjustments. Presently the tracing system can be fully applied to Olympic food supplies.

The inspection system follows second. The Beijing government has already set up laboratories with modern inspecting techniques in compliance with the Beijing Food Safety Inspection Center.

Third, a market permit system has been developed, with only an Olympic food with Quality Safety (QS) label allowed into this particular market. Completing every procedure and passing every examination to meet all the requirements results in the award of the QS label. This system has greatly enhanced Beijing food safety security capability.

The final feature, containing three principals, analyzes the gross forecast and evaluation of raw material and accessorial material of Olympic food. Sufficient quantity, insuring that enough supplies are in stock, is first. Safety, which refers to guarantee the sanitary condition, follows second. Lastly: nutritional maintenance, which means preserving a food's original flavor. The amount of raw materials and accessorial materials of Olympic food will be ongoing so several lines of defense regarding Olympic food supplies are needed to assure sufficiency and safety, such as amount set for initial supply, for secondary supply, or for emergencies.