City officials summoned by food safety office over campus canteen concerns

Food safety problems at campus canteens in Tangshan, Hebei province, and Nanchang, Jiangxi province, led to city government officials being summoned on Monday by the State Council's food safety office, China Central Television reported.

The office said food safety incidents at North China University of Science and Technology in Tangshan and Jiangxi Industry Polytechnic College in Nanchang had exposed problems such as a weak awareness of food safety and a serious lack of responsibility among school authorities that had a negative social impact.

Tangshan and Nanchang were told to uphold the bottom line on campus food safety, and the office said it would conduct on-site inspections and supervise rectification efforts.

On June 1, a video titled "A suspicious rat's head found in food at a college in Jiangxi" went viral on social media.

On June 3, the college in Nanchang issued a statement on its official Sina Weibo account saying that the local market supervision administration had confirmed the object in the food was a duck neck. But on June 17, a joint team from various departments conducted an investigation, showing that it was not a duck neck, and biologists confirmed it was the head of a rodent, CCTV reported.

On Oct 10, North China University of Science and Technology announced that it had terminated the contract of the catering company responsible for managing the student canteen at its campus in Tangshan after students reported finding unknown objects, suspected to be rat head too, in their meals.