School installs food-testing equipment

A lab was set up recently in Guhua Middle School in Fengxian District to test food before lunch every day.

The school is the first in the district to have such a facility.

The program was created by the district's education bureau after the SMIC private school in the Pudong New Area was caught up in a food safety scandal in October.

This year, Fengxian District will install testing facilities in all its schools and kindergartens.

At Guhua, teacher Xu Bin has become tester-in-chief. The school has about 1,100 students and 120 teachers. Lunch is prepared in the school canteen with ingredients provided by suppliers approved by the education bureau.

Xu arrives at the school before 6am every day to conduct checks before the canteen staff start cooking around 9:30am.

“I was told to do the job in November, soon after the scandal,” he told Shanghai Daily. “The suppliers and the food and drug administration also carry out spot checks but we are the final checkpoint.”

Last week, testing equipment was installed in a 5-square-meter area in the school clinic. According to Xu, it takes about three minutes to test pesticide residues on vegetables. Tests on meat and aquatic products take 30 to 45 minutes.

The school has to report the results to the district market watchdog by e-mail every day.

He Yongjun, director of the education bureau’s emergency office, said they plan to finish installation of testing equipment in all other schools in the district this month.