China’s recurring food safety issues continue to plague schools, with a recent incident at Changfeng School in Kunming, Yunnan Province, dubbed the “spoiled meat incident,” sparking parental protests. It has been reported that the implicated boss controls 27 companies, the majority of which are training institutions, schools, or kindergartens.
The school cafeteria at Changfeng School in Kunming, Yunnan, allegedly served spoiled meat to students, triggering collective dissatisfaction among parents. Parents on the scene noted a peculiar odor emanating from the meat products, raising serious concerns about the school cafeteria’s food safety management.
According to reports from Jímù News and New Huanghe, on October 17, the school organized a face-to-face dialogue between numerous parents and school authorities. Emotions ran high as parents questioned: “Has your child ever eaten cockroaches? Has your child ever consumed spoiled meat? Where is your conscience?” Some parents disclosed that the school threatened them by claiming that the students’ files were all within the school premises, discouraging them from speaking up further.
Video footage shows that as the meeting was about to conclude, the school’s chairman disregarded parents’ questions, put his hands in his pockets, and left, further fueling public discontent. Parents shouted, “Don’t leave!”
Among the implicated companies, 19 are operational, while 8 have been deregistered. Additionally, there are 31 associated enterprises, with the individual holding positions in 29 of them.
Research conducted on the enterprise reveals that the Kunming Guandu District Yunfeng Senior High School Co., Ltd. was established in 2021 with a registered capital of 2.1 million yuan, with Zhao Guangming as the legal representative. The major shareholder and actual controlling person of the company is Wang Jie.
Shareholding disclosure shows that the parent company of Kunming Guandu District Yunfeng Senior High School Co., Ltd. is Yunnan Jinnuo Education Investment Holdings Group Co., Ltd., with Wang Jie holding 90% of the shares and controlling 26 enterprises, including 11 companies within the group and 15 outside the group. The group’s enterprises encompass various sectors such as educational project investments, with Changfeng School in Kunming being a part of this network.
Regarding the “spoiled meat incident” in Kunming, some mainland Chinese media commentators believe that it underscores the need for private schools to enhance normative management in logistical operations. Ironically, the implicated school was selected as one of the “Top Ten Employers in Kunming for 2023.”
Not limited to private schools, state-run schools also face food safety issues.
Just last month, numerous students at Yima City First Junior High School in Sanmenxia City, Henan Province, suffered food poisoning and required hospital treatment.
In June of last year, a food safety incident at Jiangxi Vocational and Technical College stirred controversy; the incident was dubbed the “rat head duck neck” incident by the public.
When a student at the school found an object resembling the head of a rodent-like animal in the cafeteria food and shared a video of it on the internet, the matter sparked public debate. Initially, the school insisted that the object was a duck neck, a claim corroborated by the local food regulatory authority, while public opinion widely criticized the official “mouse as duck” stance.
Under public pressure, the Jiangxi Provincial authorities instructed relevant departments to reopen the investigation, ultimately confirming the object as the head of a rodent, not a duck neck.
In July of this year, the “mixing of edible oil with oil tanker trucks” incident exposed by the Xinjing News ignited public outrage. Former CCTV anchor Zhao Pu recently expressed on social media that no food safety issue is minor. Although, on the surface, the oil tanker truck mix-up reveals a problem at a certain stage, it actually reflects internal corporate management failures, malfunctioning supervision mechanisms, which have persisted for a long time.
He emphasized that the public cannot escape the fundamental issue of food safety, stating, “As long as you live here, you cannot escape it.”