The Chinese snack brand “Liangpin Puzi” was recently reported by netizens for falsifying ingredients in its products, sparking discussions among internet users. The news made it to the top search on Baidu on November 5th.
Chinese anti-counterfeiting blogger “Song Brother Da Hu” released a video questioning the products of Liangpin Puzi, alleging that multiple products of Liangpin Puzi had fake ingredient lists, such as lotus root powder mixed with cassava starch, and the absence of “powder” in the spicy powder.
The video showed that since January this year until June, the blogger’s team had purchased multiple products from Liangpin Puzi, including lotus root powder and spicy powder, from around the country. They then sent them for testing to confirm if there were any discrepancies in the ingredients. The team suspected that Liangpin Puzi had falsified the ingredient lists by adding other suspicious ingredients to the food, jeopardizing consumer food safety.
According to a report by Caifeng News on November 4th, on October 30th, “Song Brother Da Hu” brought multiple prepared products, testing equipment, monitoring reports, notarized reports, and complete evidence chains to Liangpin Puzi’s headquarters in Wuhan to safeguard their rights.
The testing results presented by “Song Brother Da Hu” indicated that before June of this year, several batches of lotus root powder produced by a certain processing factory under Liangpin Puzi’s brand had used cheap cassava powder instead of lotus root powder as raw materials, showing signs of counterfeit products. The on-site instrument observation by the blogger revealed the presence of both lotus root powder and cassava powder molecules in the lotus root powder products.
Additionally, in a certain spicy powder product by Liangpin Puzi, the ingredient list showed sweet potato starch, but relevant components were not found in the actual test, and there was no presence of cheap cassava or potato ingredients either. The blogger raised doubts about whether the compound formula of the spicy powder met safety standards.
During the attempt by “Song Brother Da Hu” to safeguard their rights at Liangpin Puzi’s Hubei headquarters and report the suspected illegal activities to the local market supervision department, they were forcibly expelled by security personnel and others. There was a physical confrontation at one point, but eventually, both parties went to the local police station to explain the situation and directly submitted the relevant testing and reporting materials to the local market supervision department afterward.
Following the escalation of the event, Liangpin Puzi swiftly removed the reported lotus root powder and spicy powder products from multiple platforms and temporarily closed the comments function on their brand’s Douyin live broadcast room. However, Liangpin Puzi’s official statement quickly clarified that the related products were still available offline, and the online removal was only a temporary measure.
On November 4th, Liangpin Puzi officially announced that after a preliminary investigation, the relevant products in multiple batches tested by our company and the manufacturer this year had all met the standards. Currently, the local regulatory authorities have initiated an investigation into our related products based on sampling.
In response to the rumors and clarifications made by Liangpin Puzi, “Song Brother Da Hu” stated that their report was focused on the batches of products produced by Liangpin Puzi before June of this year, while the brand had used test results from recent production batches to counter the allegations, which they considered as not addressing the core issue. The truth behind the matter is still pending decision by relevant departments.
On November 4th, the Dongxihu District government in Wuhan, China, announced through their official WeChat account that they would launch an investigation into the reported incidents.
Liangpin Puzi is a brand under Liangpin Puzi Co., Ltd. established in 2006, specializing in leisure food research and development, processing, packaging, and retail services. On February 24, 2020, Liangpin Puzi successfully went public on the Shanghai Stock Exchange.
According to the company’s latest financial report data, in the first three quarters of 2024, the company’s revenue was 5.48 billion RMB, a decrease of 8.66% year-on-year, with a net profit of 19.39 million RMB, down by 89.86% year-on-year.
Looking at just the third quarter of this year, Liangpin Puzi achieved a revenue of 1.594 billion RMB, down by 20.81% year-on-year, with a net loss of 4.5 million RMB compared to a profit in 2023.
Given the repeated food safety issues in China, the release of this news has sparked heated discussions among netizens.