Journal
VETERINARY RESEARCH COMMUNICATIONS
Volume 34, Issue -, Pages S163-S166Publisher
SPRINGER
DOI: 10.1007/s11259-010-9389-y
Keywords
Labeling; Ethnic food; Food safety
Categories
Ask authors/readers for more resources
Ethnic food consumption is a quickly growing reality within Chinese communities, which have a well-organized internal food market for both Asian and ethnic foods produced in the European Union. The main problems associated with these markets are related to hygienic conditions, certifications of accomplishment, and personnel management. Moreover, controls and identification of the products are difficult because of cultural and linguistic barriers. In this study, five markets managed by the Chinese were visited, and the conformity of the reported label information found on different kinds of food (prepackaged or loose) was assessed by a collaboration between the Local Authorities of Control of the Prato territory, which hosts the largest Chinese community in Italy, and of native speakers of Chinese. All visited markets presented products (n=75) with non-conformities: lack of translation (6%) and incomplete/mistaken translation of the commercial name (72%) and place of production (12%). In addition to the legal implications of the observed non-compliances, certain sanitary issues were taken into consideration. In fact, a number of the products that belong to risk categories could be misclassified in a non-risk category. Lastly, missing ingredients or complete alteration of their commercial names may represent health threats in cases of allergen ingestion by allergic or intolerant consumers.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available