A new supervision program has been launched in Beijing to monitor ice cubes at fast food restaurants.

 

　　The move by food safety authorities comes following media reports of fast food chains serving soft drinks with ice full of bacteria.

 

　　CRI's Li Dong has more.

 

　　Reporter:

 

　　According to CCTV, ice cubes used by fast food giants including KFC, McDonald's and Guangzhou-based Kungfu at their Beijing branches were tested to contain bacteria at severe levels, and some were even dirtier than toilet bowl water.

 

　　Earlier, CCTV reporters sent ice cubes from the Chongwenmen outlets of KFC, McDonald's and Kungfu for lab tests. The KFC ice cubes contained levels of bacteria which were 20 times higher than the national limit, and 13 times higher than that of water samples taken from toilet bowls.

 

　　The amount of bacterial colonies found in ice cubes from McDonald's and Kungfu reached 120 CFU and 900 CFU or colony-forming units per milliliter respectively, exceeding the national limit of 100 CFU.

 

　　Following the media exposure, Beijing Municipal Health Bureau and Beijing Health Inspection Service has initiated a weeklong special inspection into ice cubes used in the fast food industry and their manufacturing process.

 

　　The project will inspect 1709 food enterprises in Beijing, focusing on restaurants which use self-made ice cubes for cold beverages and food.

 

　　Xu Yadong is with the Beijing Health Inspection Bureau.

 

　　"Firstly, the containers have to meet the sanitation standard. Secondly, the raw materials used in food need to meet the standard; additionally, the use of food additives needs to be recorded each time."

 

　　Xu Yadong added that the sample-taking and test procedures also meet related requirements.

 

　　"The sample-taking of microorganisms in the ice cubes need to be conducted under bacteria-free condition. The transportation and test procedures will all take place under supervision to ensure no contaminants enter the sample."

 

　　Meanwhile, the China National Center for Food Safety Risk Assessment or CFSA also recently took 63 ice cube samples from 34 domestic and foreign food enterprises in Beijing and announced the test result.

 

　　The result shows that no salmonella and other major risky bacteria were found in the 63 samples. All the samples are safe.

 

　　For CRI, I am Li Dong.