China's food watchdog has ordered an investigation into four beverage groups after claims that their juice products were being made from rotten fruit.
The announcement came after four companies based in Anhui, Jiangsu and Shandong provinces, including two branches of Beijing Huiyuan, the country's top juice maker, were accused in a media report of using rotten and unripe fruit to make juice.
However, the China Food and Drug Administration said preliminary investigations had found no rotten fruit, indeed Shandong Huiyuan, a branch of Beijing Huiyuan, hadn't produced any juice since December last year.
Two companies in Anhui have been ordered to suspend operations and cooperate with law enforcement departments in further investigations, Xinhua news agency reported.
Some of China's biggest fruit juice producers, including Huiyuan and Haisheng, were accused of using rotten fruit to cut costs in a report in yesterday's 21st Century Business Herald.
Farmers were selling rotten or unripe fruit to distribution centers, which then sold it on to juice manufacturers and canned fruit producers, the newspaper said.
Its undercover reporter, who visited Dangshan County in Anhui, Fengxian County in Jiangsu and Pingyi County in Shandong, found farmers in what are China's major fruit production areas selling poor quality produce to distribution centers.
In Dangshan, where China Huiyuan Juice Group Ltd, the nation's biggest juice maker by market share, and Haisheng Fresh Fruit Juice Co have branches, fruit sales and distribution centers were seen purchasing the rotten fruit, the newspaper reported. It said the sour smell of the fruit attracted lots of flies.
Damaged crop
Dangshan is known for its pears and now is the time they should be harvested. But a chill early this year and a tornado in July affected production, with more than 40 percent of the crop damaged.
Farmers told the newspaper that they sold rotten and poor quality pears and apples to fruit juice producers in the county, mainly to the Huiyuan and Haisheng branches, while good quality fruit would go on sale in markets.
The reporter said he could smell rotting fruit when he visited the Haisheng branch, where he saw trucks full of rotten produce. He also saw trucks full of rotten fruit at the Huiyuan branch.
In Fengxian County in Xuzhou, Jiangsu Province, a farmer sold rotten fruit at 0.4 yuan (6 US cents) per kilogram to the Xuzhou branch of Yantai North Andre Juice Co Ltd, also a big juice producer in China, the newspaper reported.
Rotten fruit was sold to canned fruit producers at about 0.7 yuan to 0.8 yuan per kilogram because they required relatively better fruit, farmers said.
Farmers in the three areas told the newspaper that rotten fruit would be washed with diluted disinfectant before going on the production line immediately after it reached the factories so that it didn't have time to deteriorate further.
Chen, a fruit seller in Fengxian County told the newspaper local people didn't drink fruit juice because they knew how it was produced. It was the same situation in Dangshan and Pingyi, the paper reported.
Huiyuan denied it used fruit that had quality problems. A PR official said its juice met national standards. Some fruit could have been damaged during transport, she said.
She said the company checked carefully for pesticide residue and poor quality fruit was rejected.
Andre said its factories' operations followed the required procedures.
There was no one at Haisheng available to comment.
