"Selling duck meat under the guise of a cow" - Beware of "stale" beef jerky

Xinhuanet Hohhot, June 13 (Reporters Deng Hua and Zhang Yue) Beef jerky is a best-selling product in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, known as Genghis Khan's "horseback military rations", and has always been popular with consumers, but recently there have been reports of product quality "falling". Inner Mongolia's peak tourist season is about to arrive this year, what is the situation of the beef jerky market? The reporter conducted an investigation.

Big stories in different small labels of meat jerky

The reporter visited specialty food stores, beef jerky specialty stores and supermarkets in Hohhot in recent days and found that there are mixed product names and mixed meat jerky fish in troubled waters.

In a store on East Street of Hohhot Railway Station, a special price label in the beef jerky "camp" caught the reporter's attention. "We have all kinds of beef jerky here. The expensive ones are good meat, 130 yuan per catty, 85 yuan is also OK, but it has more meat tendons, and the cheapest one is on sale, 70 yuan per catty." said the lady boss.

The reporter picked up the special "beef jerky" and found that it was a product produced by an enterprise in Ulanqab City, Inner Mongolia. The plastic packaging was printed with "grassland jerky", and the product ingredients were "poultry and beef", but the content was not specified. The meat fiber of the jerky is obviously tender, different from other beef jerky with coarse fibers.

The reporter then selected several higher-priced jerky in the specialty store on the south side of the railway station and found that there was a mystery here. A product produced by an enterprise in Chifeng City, Inner Mongolia has a square shape, which is different from the common long strips of beef jerky. The ingredients show pork and duck meat, and the product name is minced meat jerky. This kind of jerky product is placed together with beef jerky. If consumers do not deliberately look closely at the label, it is difficult to detect its "undercover identity", and it is very easy to be bought together with authentic beef jerky.

The reporter noticed that the majority of beef jerky on the market is produced by regular manufacturers. Some sellers privately discussed that the industrial and commercial departments had recently conducted a special investigation and found some counterfeit products, so they dared not sell cheap beef jerky for the time being.

When will the "selling duck meat under the name of beef" end?

In early May, the Ministry of Public Security announced typical cases of meat product crimes cracked by public security organs in various places in the special action to combat food crimes and protect table safety. Among them, Inner Mongolia Baotou Tengda Food Co., Ltd. used duck meat and other raw materials to produce fake and inferior beef jerky and mutton jerky, which were sold to 15 provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities in China, with a case value of more than 6 million yuan.

The reporter's investigation found that in fact, such cases of using poultry meat to impersonate beef and mutton are not uncommon, and have even become a well-known secret in the industry.

Mr. Xu, who runs a meat jerky processing factory, told reporters that with the rise of grassland tourism, the number of tourists to Inner Mongolia has increased year by year, and the tourist season from May to October each year is also the peak season for beef jerky sales. As a result, many small workshops for producing beef jerky have emerged. They are not large in scale and do not need to register product trademarks. They are only sold in some specialty stores.

The reporter saw more than a dozen brands of beef jerky on the shelves at the grassland specialty store run by Mr. Xu. The most expensive one is 88 yuan per catty, and the cheapest one is as low as 55 yuan per catty. Mr. Xu told reporters that this low-priced one is called mixed meat jerky, which is mixed with minced meat pressed duck or chicken, but it has been marinated with seasonings and cannot be tasted.

As for the "gold content" of beef jerky, Mr. Xu frankly said that there are two types of meat jerky currently sold on the market, one is pure air-dried beef jerky, and the other is called minced meat jerky, which is a mixture of poultry, pork and beef. The price is relatively cheap, but not too different.

Mr. Zhao from Northeast China has been a sales agent for many years and has represented many brands of beef jerky in Inner Mongolia. Talking about these beef jerky, Mr. Zhao smiled knowingly and said: "Now the fresh beef in the market costs 28 yuan per catty. Do you think the beef jerky that costs 30 yuan per catty can be real?"

In addition to the problem of the "gold content" of beef jerky, there are also many irregularities in its production process, which are also open "secrets" in the industry.

Mr. Zhao told reporters: "Now many small-scale beef jerky processing factories have compressed many process flows, such as frying the beef first and then air-drying it, so that the outer part is already dry and hard, and it looks air-dried, but it is not. In this way, the beef still retains its original moisture, which can increase the weight and reduce the cost." He gave an example, saying that 2 catties of fresh meat can make 1 catty of beef jerky for air-dried beef jerky, while 2 catties of fresh meat for fried beef jerky can make 1.5 catties of beef jerky, which saves a lot of cost.

Mr. Zhao admitted that he also visited many beef jerky manufacturers when choosing partners. Some small processing factories have poor sanitary conditions and lack the ability to inspect and quarantine, and he dare not even taste the beef jerky produced.

Large livestock regions encounter inspection embarrassment

Zheng Yushan, deputy director of the Inner Mongolia Product Quality Inspection Institute, said that when consumers buy dried meat products, they should read the labels on the packaging, such as the name, ingredients, manufacturer and shelf life.

If the label is unclear or there is a situation of "selling duck meat under the name of cow", consumers can report it to the industrial and commercial or quality supervision department in time.

As for the inspection of meat products, Zheng Yushan showed a hint of embarrassment. "Although Inner Mongolia is a large meat production area, there has been no major update in meat quality inspection methods. It is currently necessary to go to Beijing to do it."

Su Hao, director of the Institute of Sociology of the Inner Mongolia Academy of Social Sciences, said that all regions should also speed up the integration of food supervision departments to form a joint law enforcement force. In view of the current new situation of food safety, we should not only do a good job in management, but also find the reasons for food production itself and solve the problem of management without reality.

Gai Zhiyi, dean of the School of Humanities and Social Sciences of Inner Mongolia Agricultural University, believes that food safety is ultimately a question of interests and values. In addition to government supervision, we must also prevent the emergence of interest groups and establish a diversified supervision mechanism involving industry associations, consumer representatives and social organizations. Together, we should establish the social value concept of integrity first, and record those who forge and produce inferior food in the integrity file. We should increase penalties and make the cost of violating the law unbearable for enterprises.

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