Food safety scandal rocks China as report claims cooking oil carried in same trucks as fuel

Editor’s Note: Sign up for CNN’s Meanwhile in China newsletter, which explores what you need to know about the country’s rise and how it impacts the world.

Public outrage is mounting in China over allegations that a major state-owned food company has been cutting costs by using the same tankers to carry fuel and cooking oil – without cleaning them in between.

The scandal, which implicates China’s largest grain storage and transport company Sinograin, and private conglomerate Hopefull Grain and Oil Group, has raised concerns of food contamination in a country rocked in recent decades by a string of food and drug safety scares – and evoked harsh criticism from Chinese state media.

It was an “open secret” in the transport industry that the tankers were doing double duty, according to a report in the state-linked outlet Beijing News last week, which alleged that trucks carrying certain fuel or chemical liquids were also used to transport edible liquids such as cooking oil, syrup and soybean oil, without proper cleaning procedures.

On Tuesday, the food safety office of China’s administrative State Council announced an interdepartmental team would investigate the transportation of edible oil, pledging that those responsible for any malpractice “will be severely punished in accordance with the law,” according to a statement posted on the website of the top market regulator.

The two companies named in the media report have also said investigations are underway.

Meanwhile, other major edible oil manufacturers not named in the report issued statements saying they did not use fuel trucks to transport their products.

Food security and safety have been cornerstone issues for Chinese leader Xi Jinping, who has