Capital city takes aim at food scares

Faced with a spate of food safety incidents and declining public confidence in the official response, authorities in Beijing have come up with a color-coded system of alerts and actions for dealing with food emergencies.

In the event of an outbreak of illness caused by unsafe food, public warnings will be given in the form of a four-level "pre-caution mechanism" blue for low-level threats, yellow for elevated, orange for high and red for severe, according to a food emergency response plan that took effect on Sunday.

The plan includes detailed standards for responses. For example, if the illness has affected more than 100 people or caused more than 10 deaths, it will be categorized as a high-level threat. If it also threatens other provinces, or involves Hong Kong, Macao, Taiwan or foreign countries, it will automatically be considered a severe threat.