With the popularization of dietary nutrition concepts, walnut oil rich in unsaturated fatty acids is favored by many families. Out of trust in the original ecology and pure nature, many consumers deliberately choose to place orders at online stores that claim to be "charitable and helping farmers" on e-commerce platforms. However, are these "love oils" with the aura of helping farmers and sales of tens of thousands of orders really as genuine as advertised?
This is a live broadcast of a store called "People's Supply and Marketing Cooperative Guangping Supply and Marketing Cooperative Selection". In the video, the anchor and the behind-the-scenes field controller cooperated to build momentum, claiming that the "Yuyifu" brand walnut oil sold in this live broadcast of "charity and helping farmers" is not only reliable in quality, but also at extremely favorable prices.
There are only walnuts in the ingredient list, and a five-pound package of walnut oil with a suggested retail price of 298 yuan can be purchased for only 39 yuan in the live broadcast room. The official background of the live broadcast platform, as well as selling points such as charity, low prices, and promotions, have impressed many consumers to place orders.
Is some walnut oil sold in the name of "charity" really as high-quality and cheap as the live broadcast anchor described?
Not long ago, the State Administration for Market Regulation organized a special random inspection of the food safety of live broadcast products. One of the samples was purchased from the store "Fumanduo Grain and Oil Shop" in the live broadcast room. After testing, this "Yuyifu" brand walnut oil, which has sold tens of thousands of units, has abnormal palmitic acid content, with an actual measured value of 10.8, which does not meet the reference value defined by national standards. Palmitic acid is a saturated fatty acid and one of the characteristic indicators of vegetable oils. Different vegetable oils have different levels of palmitic acid content. Among them, the palmitic acid content of walnut oil ranges from 2.2% to 10.0%.
Yin Huatao, deputy director of the Beijing Institute of Food Inspection: If the test results of walnut oil reflect that palmitic acid exceeds this range, it can be determined that the walnut oil has certain risks. In addition to the factors of abnormal raw materials and processes, if the detected palmitic acid content is higher than 10%, there is a high probability that low-priced oils are added, such as palm oil, soybean oil, corn oil and other vegetable oils with relatively high palmitic acid.
In accordance with the "Food Safety Law of the People's Republic of China" and "Food Safety Sampling Inspection Management Measures", if special sampling inspections find that food does not meet food safety standards or there is evidence that it may harm human health, food producers and operators should stop production and operation, implement food recalls, and control food safety risks.
Wang Haibo, Director of the Sampling Inspection and Monitoring Division of the Food Safety Sampling and Monitoring Department of the State Administration for Market Regulation: In response to the problems discovered during the special sampling inspection, the market supervision department has carried out verification and disposal as soon as possible, urging the companies involved to control food safety risks, strictly handle violations of laws and regulations in accordance with the law, and promptly transfer suspected crimes to the public security organs.
The product packaging shows that this "Yiyufu" brand walnut oil is produced by "Yiyufu" Grain and Oil Co., Ltd. in Taizhou City, Jiangsu Province. After receiving the verification task order from the State Administration for Market Regulation, market supervisors in Xinghua City, Taizhou, immediately checked the walnut oil’s nominal production company, factory name and address, production license number and other related information. The results showed that these nominal information were all false labels.
Feng Changjian, Market Supervision and Administration Bureau of Xinghua City, Jiangsu Province: In this case, we found that the price of walnut oil was significantly lower than the market price. We suspect that the walnut oil may be fake. If other edible oils or other things are used as walnut oil, it may involve food safety.
In order to find the real factory address, law enforcement officers continued to monitor the "People's Supply and Marketing Cooperative Guangping Supply and Marketing Cooperative Selection" live broadcast room for more than 20 days. When the live broadcast room started selling "Yiyifu" brand walnut oil again, by purchasing and returning the product, they followed the clues and successfully identified Sun, the seller of the product, and his production base in a remote private house in the southern district of the prefabricated factory in Xinghua City.
The reporter saw here that in the extremely simple factory building, the ground was in chaos, and more than 20 barrels of ordinary soybean oil were piled on the site. Law enforcement officials told reporters that on the day of the inspection of the den, Sun and his family were working overtime to fill fake walnut oil.
Sun admitted that the walnut oil claimed in the live broadcast room was actually ordinary soybean oil pretending to be filled.
Qi Rongxin, Inspection Brigade of Xinghua Municipal Market Supervision and Administration Bureau, Jiangsu Province: The main process is that workers put the raw materials of soybean oil into the oil storage tank through the oil pump, and then use the filling machine to use the operating table to pack it into small bottles of walnut oil.
In addition to "Yu Feng Yi Fu" walnut oil, this den also used the same soybean oil to fill fake "Xiangmanchu" brand walnut oil, as well as "Yufeng Yiu Fu" perilla seed oil and "Xiang Chu Ji" perilla seed oil, a total of four edible oils. These counterfeit products all have words about nutrition, deliciousness, and health prominently displayed on their outer packaging to attract consumers to buy them.
Wang Daming from the Inspection Team of Xinghua City Market Supervision and Administration Bureau of Jiangsu Province: Calculated based on the price of soybean oil raw materials, this oil is only about seven or eight yuan per barrel according to cost accounting. The price of real walnut oil may be 50 or 60 yuan per catty, and the price of perilla seed oil may be around 100 yuan per catty.
Law enforcement officers at the scene seized a total of 2,660 liters of soybean oil used for counterfeiting, 5,128 empty plastic bottles, more than 10,000 labels and stickers, 288 bottles of counterfeit walnut oil and perilla seed oil that had been filled for sale, as well as counterfeit equipment such as oil storage tanks, oil pumps, filling machines, and balers.
Faced with inquiries from law enforcement officials, Sun, the person in charge of the counterfeiting den, explained the entire business chain. Starting in January this year, he and his family used ordinary soybean oil to fake and fill it into 5-pound packages of walnut oil, perilla seed oil, etc., and supplied it to Gu, a fellow from Shandong as a middleman, who then connected with the live broadcast platform for sales.
The market supervision department verified that Sun used ordinary soybean oil to fill and produce 5-pound products without obtaining a food production license. He pasted different labels to pretend to be walnut oil, perilla seed oil, etc., and sold them at an actual price of 39.99 yuan/barrel. The producer Sun, the middleman Gu, and the anchor shared the sales according to the sales. Among them, Gu takes a commission of 1.2 to 1.6 yuan per order, and the anchor takes a commission of 9.2 to 9.6 yuan per order; the remaining income belongs to Sun. After excluding costs, Sun makes a profit of about 1.2 yuan per order. According to statistics, in about half a year, Sun and others actually completed 64,107 transactions, with a sales amount of more than 3.1 million yuan.
Food safety is no small matter, a drop of oil is related to the health on the tongues of thousands of households. Selling fake and inferior products under the guise of "charity and helping farmers" not only breaks down the bottom line of integrity, but also touches the red line of food safety.
To control this kind of chaos from the source, e-commerce and live broadcast platforms must control their entry and strictly review corporate qualifications and product endorsements. They must not let false certifications and disguised identities become a gold medal for criminals; regulatory authorities must further open up the rapid process from online random inspection to offline traceability. The response mechanism is to implement a full-chain crackdown on black dens that conceal production and sell stolen goods across regions; at the same time, it is necessary to fully implement the traceability and tracking system of producers and operators, so that the source of raw materials can be traced, the production process can be traced, and the flow and whereabouts can be clarified, so as to truly cut off hidden risks before they flow into the dining table.
