Shanghai launches mobile food testing

SHANGHAI: Food authorities in China's financial hub Shanghai have launched a mobile food testing van that can quickly tell whether food is edible, amid growing questions about the safety of Chinese produce.

"The fast-testing system will carry out the initial checking and those samples that prove problematic will be sent to labs for further check," Gu Zhenhua, head of the food safety under Shanghai Food and Drug Administration, said on Friday.

The system, intended for spot checks and investigations, has been introduced after a scandal in which contaminated pet food killed possibly thousands of pets in the United States.

The US Food and Drug Administration found last week that two Chinese companies added lethal chemical melamine to wheat gluten and rice protein which was later used in pet food.

Melamine is not believed to pose a risk to humans, but the case is just one of several that point to poor regulation in China.

The nation has been criticised previously for not sharing information on the bird flu virus and the outbreak of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, a pneumonia-like disease that emerged in China in 2003.

Food scandals have surfaced in China in everything from baby milk which killed infants, to carcinogenic residue found in fish.