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Three global supermarkets ranked bottom

By Meng Jing (China Daily)
Updated: 2009-12-25 07:50

Customers select organic vegetables that claim to be free from pesticides yesterday. [China Daily]

Walmart, Ito Yokado and Tesco are bottom of Greenpeace China's 2009 supermarket ranking for its double standards regarding vegetable and fruit safety in China and abroad.

In the list announced by Greenpeace China on Wednesday, the three ranked 13th and worse in the 15 supermarkets due to their reluctance to improve their food safety supervision and make a commitment on banning genetically modified food in their stores.

Wang Weikang, the campaign manager of food and agriculture at Greenpeace China, said Ito Yokaodo promised a strict pesticide supervision system to its Japanese consumers on its Japanese website, while Tesco and Walmart pledged no modified food to Greenpeace' UK office. But their stores in China refused to make the same promise to Chinese consumers.

"All consumers in the world need safe food. If they are able to do that in other countries, why can't they do that in China? Their behavior doesn't respect Chinese consumers," Wang told METRO yesterday.

According to Greenpeace China, they sent out questionnaires as well as making phone calls to 15 major supermarkets all over China one and a half month ago, asking for their commitments on gradually reducing pesticide amounts in vegetables and fruits to zero and selling no genetically modified food in their supermarkets. But the headquarters of Walmart, Ito Yokado and Tesco in China didn't make any promises.

"Chinese supermarkets don't need to have the same standard as Japan, China has its own social reality," Li Zhisheng, the spokesman of Ito Yokado's Beijing headquarter, said in reply to the accusation.

"Our supermarkets act as distributing channels and we are not producers. But we try our best to pick vegetables and fruits from brandname producers," Li added.

Li said Ito Yokado has nine supermarkets in Beijing and 95 percent of their vegetables and fruits are either organic or pollution free.

It is reported by the Beijing Morning Post yesterday that both of the official statements from Walmart and Tesco said they operate according to the Chinese' food safety standards.

Sun Gonghe in charge of food safety at the China chain store and franchise association said China has a stricter standard than European countries regarding agricultural chemicals residue.

Yan Yu, a university teacher in Beijing, said the food quality in famous supermarkets is not that questionable comparing with the double standards they use in China and abroad.

"I do feel I'm treated like a second-class citizen after I heard they have different exam standards in different countries," he said.