Food Safety in China

From contaminated infant formula to a spate of all-too-familiar headlines in recent years, food safety has emerged as one of the harsher realities behind China's economic miracle. Tainted beef, horse meat and dioxin outbreaks in the Western world have also put food safety in the global spotlight. Food Safety in China: Science, Technology, Management and Regulation presents a comprehensive overview of the history and current state of food safety in China, along with emerging regulatory trends and the likely future needs of the country. Although the focus is on China, global perspectives are presented in the chapters and 33 of the 99 authors are from outside China. Introductory chapters address such issues as the shared responsibility for food safety, the development of China's food industry, the current status of China's food safety, and educational and training courses designed to ensure food safety in China. The scientific aspects of food safety are explored next, with seven chapters on food microbiology, five on food chemistry and four chapters on risk assessment. A series of six chapters then addresses China's relatively new food laws and regulations, inspection methods and international trade. This is followed by a focus on six major commodity groups: meat, dairy, fruits and vegetables, fats and oils, cereals and seafood. Four concluding chapters discuss the application of innovative technologies to food safety. Timely and illuminating, Food Safety in China offers invaluable insights into our understanding of a critical link in the increasingly globalized complex food supply chain of today's world.