(Yicai) July 10 -- Chinese food giants Luhua Group and Yihan Kerry Arawana Holdings said they strictly supervise their edible oil shipments, after a media report alleged that companies use fuel tanker trucks to transport cooking oil.

Luhua enforces stringent food safety controls along the entire supply chain, including transport, and uses special tanker trucks for edible oils, the peanut oil producer said on Weibo yesterday. Yihai Kerry loads edible oils into barrels at its plants before shipping and has strict transport process controls, a staffer told Yicai, adding that the Shanghai-based unit of Singapore’s Wilmar International only uses its own tanker trucks.

Beijing News reported on July 2 that a lengthy investigation had revealed that many general-purpose tankers carry both edible and chemical liquids, such as coal-derived oil. To cut costs, the tankers are not cleaned between shipments, so edible oils are contaminated with toxic chemicals, the report said.

Luhua cleans and dries the interior and exterior of the tankers used before loading products, samples and tests the products after loading, and then seals the trucks, the Shandong province-based company said.

Edible vegetable oils should be transported in special containers, not in tankers used for non-edible products, according to Chinese regulations.

Mixing edible oil with coal-derived oil means toxic, harmful, and inedible materials are combined with food, said Xu Hao, a lawyer at Jingsh Law Firm. Anyone involved in such cases could be held criminally liable because they knowingly did not clean the tankers before loading edible products, Xu told Yicai.

Editor: Futura Costaglione