East China’s Jiangsu province has strengthened food safety inspection before the arrival of the Mid-Autumn Festival and the National Day Holiday.
In the recent inspections on large wholesale markets, food trading markets, farmers’ markets, supermarkets, and small grocery stores, the Provincial Market Supervision Administration focused on moon cakes in addition to pastries, marinated meat, beef, mutton, and vegetables.
The inspection found that moon cakes, pastries and meat products were up to the standards while one out of 100 sampled farm produce was found to contain pesticide residue. All together, 99.68% of the 310 batches of sampled food measured up to the standards.
As the Mid-Autumn Festival is approaching, some consumers are worried whether the moon cakes are added with excessive preservatives.
Food experts pointed out that, in addition to freshly made moon cakes, packaged moon cakes allow the addition of very few types of additives.
Qualified moon cakes that have undergone high-temperature baking and sterilization contain very little water and can be stored for a long time if they are packaged aseptically and well sealed.