What Is the Safest Form of Takeaway Food Packaging during COVID-19?

Nowadays, online ordering has become an important mode for the masses to meet the needs of food consumption. However, with the rapid growth of takeout ordering, the safety problems of online takeout food packaging such as disposable takeout boxes should not be underestimated. According to the unified deployment of the special supervision activities of YUYAO City, Zhejiang Province handled the first administrative public interest lawsuit on the safety of online takeout food plastic packaging bag around the key areas of online food safety in China.

Present Situation of Take Away Food Packaging

At the beginning of June this year, YUYAO municipal procuratorate investigated and verified more than 10 restaurants providing takeout service by means of questionnaire survey, on-site inspection, information verification, and visits by administrative organs. In their investigation, they found that takeaway merchants used resealable plastic bags without food safety information and did not use the packaging method of sealing to avoid direct contact with food, which may have problems such as toxic food packaging materials and food contamination in the delivery process. The investigation also found that some takeaway businesses did not publicize the food safety file information on the takeaway platform and some licensed businesses did not specify the online food business information in the registration certificate, so they may have problems such as operating beyond the scope. On the basis of investigation and verification, the case handling team will focus on four aspects: offline supervision, online use, packaging and sealing, and information publicity.

Food packaging safety and food quality safety are equally important, which is related to the well-being of people's livelihood. Therefore, the government needs to be based on the procuratorial function of public interest litigation in the next step and focus on the supervision of illegal acts involving food safety in new online sales business such as takeaway and live delivery, so as to protect everyone's good life with public interest litigation.

Selection of Take Away Food Packaging Box

In view of the potential safety problems of takeaway printed plastic bags, the prosecutor suggested that online catering providers should use non-toxic and clean food containers, tableware, and packaging materials. In addition, businesses should package the food with plastic packaging bags wholesale to avoid direct contact with the food and ensure that the food is not contaminated during the delivery process. At present, most of the takeout small resealable plastic bag in the market are made of plastic, so consumers who often order takeout should learn to accurately identify inferior plastic boxes.

lCheck whether the safety signs of the large resealable plastic bag are complete, such as whether there are QS signs and numbers;

lWhether the surface of the plastic packaging bag for food is smooth, whether there are impurities or spots, etc;

lTouch the strength，because the strength of products that produced by using recycled waste or adding a large amount of industrial grade calcium carbonate is generally very poor;

lSmell whether the transparent packaging bag has peculiar smell because the qualified product has no peculiar smell.