FDA reveals rise in food poisoning

or excessive use of pesticides. Unqualified products mainly involved vegetables, poultry meat and fish.

In the process of food production and processing, microorganism and food additives are the leading problems, exposing loopholes of food production administration and inspection in the city.

Microorganism is the main reason for unqualified food and is blamed for over 70 percent of all unqualified cases, Shanghai FDA said.

For checks in local restaurants and eateries, salad, cooked meat products, raw aquatic products and ready-made or prepared microwaveable meals were the items detected with having excessive bacteria counts and E.coli. The illegal use of food additives and excessive use of flavor enhancers are also big problems.

There were three mass food poisoning cases in the city last year, causing illness to 142 people without death. It accounted for 0.59 in every 100,000 people.

In previous years, outbreaks of food poisoning and foodrelated illnesses had dropped and remained at a historical low. There were no serious mass food poisoning cases in the city. The three cases took place in January, July and October in 2017. They were all related to bacteria poisoning after staff neglected their health and safety duties and food was contaminated due to cross infection during production and operation process.