Food safety an Olympic challenge for Beijing Games

By Lindsay Beck

BEIJING (Reuters) - Pampered pigs or processed pork? Farm-fresh or greenhouse grown?

With China's food supplies under scrutiny following a series of health and safety scares, Chinese officials are taking no chances for the Olympic Games next month.

At the headquarters of China's product safety watchdog, a bank of screens shows real-time video monitoring of food-related facilities, including one churning out chewing gum, and customs bureaux that handle food imports and exports.

The monitoring station can receive signals from 1,000 facilities at one time.

"During the Beijing Olympic Games, the inspection and quarantine agencies will use the monitoring network to have real-time monitoring over each product to guarantee food safety," Sun Bo, an official at the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine, told reporters.

China has launched a massive coding system incorporating everything from vegetables to drinking water after a wave of scandals highlighted corruption in oversight bodies and a willingness among manufacturers to flout standards in order to maximise razor-thin profit margins.

But basic questions remain over how food safety will be assured during the Games, not least the safety of meat, which has been a focus of concern over the possibility that residual drugs in animal feed could cause positive doping tests.

The use of antibiotics and growth stimulants to boost yields is common in food production globally, including in China where it is poorly regulated.