Yesterday, Kunming’s Food Safety Commission made its mid-year report on food safety and inspection. According to the briefing, 62,192 establishments were inspected under special regulations regarding misuse of food additives and non-food additives.
Recent food safety scares, most notably the melamine cases of 2008, have raised the profile of food safety issues.
According to the report, this year the Kunming Agriculture Bureau carried out special monitoring of veterinary drugs and illegal animal feed additives. Samples from Kunming’s 14 counties and city districts all gave negative results for Clenbuterol, a pig feed additive …

The Codex Alimentarius Commission (CAC) concluded a week-long meeting and adopted more than 30 new international standards, codes of practice and guidelines to improve worldwide food safety and protect the health of consumers.
New standards adopted by the Commission include:
Reduction of acrylamide in food
The Commission approved measures for reducing the formation of acrylamide in food. The code of practice will provide national and local authorities, manufacturers and others with guidance to prevent and reduce formation of acrylamide in potato products during all phases of the production process. The guidance includes strategies …

Even if you’re not a fan of nonfat dry milk you should pay attention to a number of recalls being made by the Food and Drug Administration because the tainted milk—or related milk products—can appear as an ingredient in foods you do like such as popcorn, hot cereal and cocoa.
Giant, Kroger, Meijer, Stop & Shop and other well-known retailers have recalled a variety of foods made over the past two years with ingredients provided by Plainview Milk Products Cooperative in Plainview, Minn., because they might be contaminated with salmonella. Malt-O-Meal …

We were selling at a Farmers Market and an elderly farmer’s wife stopped by to look at our offerings.  She looked at our “Organic” sign and said “Honey, we’ve been growing organic since before you were born,” and if you know anything about the green revolution after World War 2 you can understand her statement.  Before the invention of ammonium nitrate for bombs, farmers relied basically on organic means to grow their vegetables.  We went from every community having a fresh food market to almost none.  Before the establishment of …

And another piece of legislation involving, surprise surprise, Waxman. Read the full text of H.R. 2749: Food Safety Enhancement Act of 2009.
The Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund has an extensive discussion here.
Here’s some highlights:
1. The FSEA would require facilities to register annually [section 101(b)(1)–p. 3], rather than a one-time registration. Registrants would also be required to pay an annual fee of $500, to be adjusted for inflation [section 101, Part6, sec 743(b)(1)(A)–p. 10].
2. The term “facility” does not include “farms” for purposes of registration in either the current law or under …