Australia has been importing cooking oils from one of the companies implicated in a food safety scandal in China, the Department of Agriculture has confirmed.
Chinese authorities say they are investigating after local media reports found a major state-owned food company used the same trucks to ship fuel, chemical liquids and food products to cut costs.
An investigation by state-backed Beijing News, which published the allegations on July 2, said it was an “open secret” in the transport industry that the trucks weren’t cleaned between deliveries.
China’s largest grain storage and transport company, Sinograin, and private conglomerate Hopefull Grain and Oil Group were implicated in the report. Both have since announced investigations into the matter.
A Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry spokesperson said Australia imported a range of oils from China that could be considered “cooking oils”, including from one of the companies named in the media reports.
“As it is unclear what ‘cooking oils’ are implicated, volume data isn’t available,” they said.
“As per our normal procedures, the department will seek assurances from China that cooking oils exported to Australia are safe for consumption.
“Importers will also be advised to seek assurances from suppliers. There are no import bans currently in place for cooking oil from China.”
The ABC has sought clarification on which of the two companies Australia is importing from.
Meanwhile, public outrage and food safety concerns are spreading among Chinese communities and across social media.
So what are the potential health and food safety implications? Is Australia at risk? And how might these allegations impact consumer behaviour in China?
What are the health risks?
The food products transported in the tankers included cooking oil, soybean oil and syrup.
According to the investigation, those same tankers were also used to ship coal-to-oil products, which contain unsaturated hydrocarbons, aromatic hydrocarbons, sulphides and other elements that could cause poisoning.
Dr Ulku Yuksel, a senior lecturer at the University of Sydney Business School whose research specialises in cross-cultural consumer behaviour, condemned the companies for neglecting consumer health in favour of cost-cutting.
As she puts it: “Food safety is a basic human right.”
“This can cause not only poisoning – like short-term or long-term poisoning – this poisoning can have fatal effects on people’s vital organs,” Dr Yuksel told the ABC.
“It’s fatal, the repercussions of such a devastating decision to use the same tankers for the fuel, chemical liquids and cooking oil.”
Dr Yuksel said the seriousness of the cooking oil scandal was equivalent to the 2008 Chinese milk scandal, when contaminated milk powder products were found to have caused the deaths of six infants and the hospitalisation of some 54,000 others.
That incident significantly damaged the reputation of China’s food exports, and prompted legions of Chinese consumers to boycott local brands and source products like baby formula from overseas including Australia.
Dr Yuksel said the contaminated cooking oil could potentially affect even more people.
“I wouldn’t say this is worse, but I would say it’s as bad.”
Dr Andrew Matheson is a senior lecturer at the Australian National University’s College of Health and Medicine who has worked with the World Health Organization and the United Nations on matters of food safety.
He told the ABC that while certain adulterants may be easily detected due to their distinctive taste, there was the worrying possibility that consumers could be exposed to other potentially harmful chemicals without realising it.
“Hopefully if there’s a taste or a taint, people would then stop using it,” Dr Matheson said.
“But there’s other chemicals that could be carried that don’t have a taste.”
Even if the tankers contained only small residual quantities of certain chemicals when transporting the cooking oil, Dr Matheson said it could still have an impact – noting that “if [a container’s] moving food, the theory is it should only move food.”
“It is of concern,” he said.
The ABC has approached Sinograin for comment, but did not receive a response.
Is Australia at risk?
The Chinese government has been quick to respond to the allegations, acknowledging the potential dangers and setting up a team within the State Council to investigate.
But the damage may have already been done.
Dr Yuksel said the scandal could have far-reaching consequences in China, predicting that it was “going to affect all the other Chinese brands who are trying to export those products” because international consumers would be less willing to trust them.
“They [China] know this is going to affect their entire economy,” she said.
The dangers may also extend far beyond China’s borders.
It remains unclear whether the allegedly contaminated cooking oil products were for domestic use or international export.
If it’s the latter, countries around the world could also face risks – especially if they don’t have their own systems in place to test imported goods for potentially harmful contaminants.
“We’re vulnerable in Australia,” Dr Matheson said.
“If they’ve done this dodgy stuff with the oil and it comes as cooking oil to Australia, we don’t test it necessarily, so we could be exposed to this hazard.”
Data from the Chatham House Resource Trade Database shows that Australia imported a total $564,000 worth of crude soybean oil – both crude and refined –from China in 2022.
Dr Matheson commended China’s national government for recognising the need to invest significant resources in tracing contaminated products and stopping similar incidents from happening again.
“The question now has to be: ‘How long has it been going on for, and how much of it’s been exported already that could be in the Australian market?'” he said.
Dr Matheson explained that the Australian government relies on international exporters to guarantee the safety of goods imported into the country, rather than testing those goods first-hand.
“That’s ridiculous,” he said.
“That’s the vulnerability: if you don’t actually have your own national testing systems, but the companies working in China take shortcuts, the world is then exposed.”
How is the Chinese community reacting?
The controversy quickly became the top trending topic on social media platforms including Weibo and Douyin, a Chinese equivalent of TikTok.
There were thousands of posts — with many expressing outrage and disappointment about the lack of accountability from the government — that generated millions of views.
But the Chinese government appears to be censoring the topic, as a search now only throws up a handful of related posts.
Cao Lei, a 34-year-old shop owner from Inner Mongolia, first heard the news on Douyin.
“There are always some people using loopholes to make profits”, he said.
“I feel so angry about those companies and [I’m] worried about our health.
“I hope the government will deal with [this incident] seriously as food safety is such a crucial thing for ordinary people.”
Many others took to social media to air their grievances.
One user of Chinese social media platform Weibo compared fears around the contaminated cooking oil to those concerning Japan’s controversial decision to release treated wastewater from the Fukushima nuclear plant into the Pacific Ocean.
The prospect of contaminated cooking oil in China is more troubling, the Weibo user wrote, because it impacts more people much closer to home.
“People have been complaining about the harm caused by the nuclear wastewater released by Japan,” they wrote.
“But after seeing the toxic tanker trucks, which mixed cooking oil with chemicals, they realised nuclear pollution is further away and can be avoided if [they don’t eat] seafood, however, the toxic cooking oil hurts the ordinary people more.
“Rich people can use imported oil, while ordinary people can only afford domestic oil.”