The French supermarket chain Carrefour and the American fast-food chain McDonald’s topped the list of offenders made by of the Chinese central television (CCTV) on the anniversary of World Consumer Rights Day on March 15.

A team from the CCTV went to a McDonald’s restaurant in Sanlitun, a neighborhood of Beijing, and took photos with a hidden camera; they documented the use of stiffen cheese in burgers, hours after removing the sanitary plastic cover from it. The TV journalists also noted that the restaurant staff had been manipulating the expiration dates of the deserts sold by this restaurant.

When they asked a staff member about these practices, without the person knowing that they were being recorded, they were told that the practices would increase profits and bonuses for the staff.

McDonald’s of China came with an immediate response on its blog, saying it attaches great importance to these violations. The company added that they will strengthen the management and focus on running the business according to the necessary criteria in order to maintain good consumer reputation and clean food and promised to prevent the recurrence of such incidents.

China has experienced several food scandals in recent months, ranging from using recycled cooking oils to fruits being painted to look fresher, mushrooms found to be radiated and tainted wine. The number of McDonald’s restaurants in China has reached more than 1400 with 200 of these opening just last year, according to the official website of the company. China is the third largest market for the fast food chain, which provides employment for more than 70.000 people.

The French hypermarket chain Carrefour has 200 stores in China, which were targeted last year. After it misled customers through a number of deceptive offers, the Chinese TV station were careful to include them in their report. 

In the Zhengzhou branch, regular chicken was sold as a free-range chicken at double the price, according to the TV channel. Carrefour has opened an investigation immediately, and promised severe punishment to those responsible in order to protect the rights of the consumers, according to their official Sina Weibo micro-blog, the Chinese equivalent to Twitter.

After three days, the authorities in Zhengzhou temporally shut down the store as per a report by China’s national English-language newspaper for North American readers, China Daily USA. In 2011, Carrefour was accused by the Chinese National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) for misleading pricing tags.

The discovery of the misguided pricing was made after an undercover investigation carried out by NDRC personnel in five branches of the French hypermarket chain in a handful of cities.

Image Courtesy of  http://www.flickr.com/photos/asmythie/

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Annec Green Refractories Corporation, one of leading refractory enterprises in China, has announced that it was the recipient of Scientific Achievements and Government Grants in 2011.

Zhengzhou Annec Industrial Co., (“Zhengzhou Annec”), a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Company, received government grants in 2011 which amounted to RMB1.16 million. Of the total amount,RMB300,000 was appropriated as project funds for the Research and Development Center of the Zhengzhou Green Refractories Engineering that was established by Zhengzhou Annec.

In 2011, Zhengzhou Annec was awarded the second prize for Science and Technology Progress of Henan Province and the first prize for Science and Technology Progress of Zhengzhou City for a project called “Optimal Design of the Primary Refractories in the Top-combustion Hot Blast Furnace and Research and Application of the AH Series Andalusite Bricks.”

The project with Zhengzhou Annec as its primary contributor was chaired by Zhengzhou Annec’s chief engineer Professor Sun Gengchen. In the process of the project’s research and development, more than RMB10 million was invested to set up an integrated laboratory of CFD numerical simulation, cold-state and hot-state simulation tests stoves.

The thermal parameters Zhengzhou Annec collected from the test stoves have helped Zhengzhou Annec scientifically formulate the optimal design and standard of the refractories in the top-combustion hot blast stove, and  develop the ideal refractories, namely, AH series and andalusite bricks with high thermal shock resistance that are used for the top-combustion hot blast stove and its hot blast pipeline.

Since its establishment one year ago, the laboratory has successfully contributed to advancing iron-making technology in our country. It provides valuable data for developing low-carbon and energy-conserving hot blast stove with ultra-high temperature and provides guidance and direction for the technical research in the supportive refractory materials.

Mr. Fuchao Li, Chairman of the Company, commented as follows: “With such support from government, we believe that we could maintain our technical leadership in the industry, thus we intend to focus on high-end products, which we believe will increase our gross margin and enhance our customer bases.”

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