Districts take joint approach to stop illegal offal market
Print Edition
LAW enforcement officers from Minhang and Jiading districts have begun standing guard at their respective ends of Huajiang Bridge in a bid to stop an illegal pig offal market.
This follows food safety concerns as the offal has not been inspected, and complaints about basins of livers, kidneys, stomachs and intestines being sold on the bridge walkway.
In the past, efforts to crack down on the market were stymied by the bridge’s location between the two districts.
When Minhang law enforcement officers arrived, vendors would rush to the Jiading side. And if a Jiading team descended, they would head across to Minhang.
But now officials say they are working together.
On Tuesday, 78 officers from food security offices, urban management teams, traffic police departments and other governmental offices from Minhang’s Huacao Town and Jiading’s Jiangqiao Town raided the market.
More than a ton of offal was seized, Li Feng, an official with Huacao Town’s urban management team, told Shanghai Daily.
“Now when we decide to launch an operation, we’ll tell officials from Jiangqiao Town so we can coordinate,” he said.
Another sign of the districts working together is the patrols at either end of the bridge.
Around 15 officers from each district will patrol the bridge between midnight and 6am, when most vendors do business, to prevent the market resuming.
“We will try a week first and reduce the number of officers if vendors don’t return,” Li said.
However, some offal dealers are bypassing the ban by selling from their minivans on nearby roads.
“It’s hard for us to block them, though we’ve set up inspection points in the area,” said Li.
The offal is said to come from small slaughterhouses in Shanghai and neighboring Jiangsu Province.
Li says the only way to stop the trade is to halt this source.
“These slaughterhouses should be regulated to sell the offal in legal ways, with official inspection certificates,” he said.
Pig offal sold without inspection presents risks from pesticide residue, excessive heavy metal, viruses and bacteria, said officials.
The city’s food security administration is also investigating the problem.
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