Food safety drive to continue in 2010

China's top quality control official yesterday promised to push forward a food-safety campaign that nailed 5,654 unsafe food producers last year.

"As the general food safety situation remains grim in the country, we'll continue the overhaul of the food industry this year," Wang Yong, director of the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine (AQSIQ), told a national working conference in Beijing.

Food safety has long been a problem haunting China, especially after several deadly cases, such as the tainted milk scandal in 2008 in which at least six babies were killed and about 300,000 were sickened.