After two years of taking the same combination of herbs to treat his insomnia, 67-year-old Gu Fei found that they suddenly failed to help him sleep. The change, he realised, came after he tried to save money by buying the herbs from a wholesale market in Chengdu.
'The flavour was not right,' Gu told the Guangzhou-based Southern Weekly. One of the herbs was also half its usual size, and when he soaked it in water for a few minutes, it turned out to be full of sand.
After Gu spent months talking to herb dealers and other experts, the consensus was that the herbs he thought he bought were just the remains of previously processed herbs that should have been thrown away rather than resold. Luo Shiwen , a retired official with the State Food and Drug Administration, said the practice was a growing problem.
'It is more common to see substandard herbs passed off as top-notch, but now recycling the waste and passing it off as genuine can be found almost everywhere in the industry,' Luo said.
'The quality of herbs has never been as bad as it is now.'
After passing himself off as a herbal shop owner, Gu found that sellers in wholesale markets displayed mainly samples, and the larger deals involving retailers were done outside the market.