AP News, June 19th, 2007
A company in eastern China was ordered to stop production after food safety officials found it was repackaging the filling from two-year-old rice dumplings, an official said Tuesday.
Officials in east China's Anhui province ordered a recall of all "zongzi" _ a traditional snack made of glutinous rice and other fillings usually wrapped in bamboo leaves _ made by the manufacturer, Wan Maomao Frozen Food Co.
"We are still investigating. The company will be punished according to law after the investigation," said an official with the Quality and Technical Supervision Bureau in Anhui's capital, Hefei, who like many Chinese would give only his surname, Wu.
Calls to the number listed for Wan Maomao Frozen Foods rang unanswered.
There were no reports of anyone falling ill from eating the dumplings. But the recall comes amid an uproar over problems with tainted foods and medicines that have spread to other countries following the discovery of toxic chemicals from China in medicines, pet foods and toothpaste made or sold overseas.
The dumplings were not sold outside Anhui, Wu said.
The factory had removed the original wrappings from the dumplings and repackaged them as made in 2007, according to a report Tuesday in the official newspaper Shanghai Daily. Some of the dumplings already had begun to rot, it said.
The Shanghai Daily said authorities found two tons of the expired dumplings in a weekend raid of the factory. They retrieved another 1.4 tons that already had been sold, it said.
Zongzi are traditionally eaten during the Dragon Boat festival each June. According to custom, the dumplings originally were thrown into a river as an offering to the ancient poet Qu Yuan, who according to legend drowned himself in 278 BC.
