China says food safety push "hits targets early"

By Ben Blanchard

BEIJING (Reuters) - China's four-month food safety campaign managed to hit its targets early, with officials seizing thousands of tainted products and putting many unregulated shops and eateries out of business, a state newspaper said on Thursday.

Scandals involving substandard food, drugs and other goods are reported by Chinese media almost every day, and the issue has burst into the international spotlight since tainted additives exported from China contaminated pet food in North America.

The nationwide sweep netted 1.25 million kg (2.76 million lb) of substandard food and 945 tonnes of pork which had been slaughtered in illegal abattoirs or was from pigs which died of disease, Communist Party newspaper the People's Daily said.

Inspectors shut 192,400 unlicensed food producers and pulled 29,800 products from the shelves, the front page report added.

And 100 percent of stores in larger towns and cities now had a quality label system in place and could trace back where their supplies came from, it said.

"The State Council's determined aim of putting in place the 'two 100 percents' and 'a thorough resolution' for food safety by the end of the year has been achieved early," the newspaper said, using typically turgid language.

Worries about the safety of the made-in-China mark have provoked such anger in some circles in the United States that Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama said on Wednesday he would ban all Chinese-made toys.

Millions of toys made in China have been recalled this year, many by U.S. producer Mattel, mainly because of excessive levels of lead paint.