With the Spring Festival approaching, Mrs Lu, who lives in Damuqiao Community in Hangzhou, is busy preparing food and drinks for safety tests as a food quality inspector volunteer.

On November 8, 2009, the city government published a comprehensive food safety guide for the first time. This Sunday, Hangzhou municipal government will publish 2010 safety guides for three categories: yellow wine, processed food and vegetables. On Jan 27, Mrs Lu and 8 others from Damuqiao Community, Meizhengqiao Community and Jinxiu Community were invited to select yellow wine, processed food and vegetable samples from markets in Hangzhou and submit the samples for testing.

The inspectors went to Maolangxiang food market on Youshengguan Road to buy test samples. In a wine shop, Mr Huang chose 2 bottles of Kuaijishan yellow wine. Mrs Lu and Mrs Fan bought sweet rice wine and sweet porridge of eight ingredients in another shop. "My family loves sweet rice wine," explained Mrs Lu, "so I'd like to know whether sweet rice wine is safe to eat."

Mr Huang bought 2 bottles of yellow wine.

After an hour's shopping, nine food-inspector volunteers bought yellow wine, sweet rice wine and buck wheat powder among 14 types of food. More samples were brought by 6 volunteers to the Hangzhou Quality Technology Monitor Inspection Institution for safety tests.

At the test reception hall, the volunteers registered the food samples and then went to the test room on 11th floor. Behind a window, volunteers watched the inspectors analyze the samples and their compositions.

Mrs Zhao watched the testing behind a window.

"I'm very proud to take part in the food safety inspecting process," said Mrs Zhao. "We contribute to the sample choosing and also understand how the tests are made. Now we have 100% trust in the outcome of the tests."

By Li Hui

Editor: Xie Fang