Factory used industrial salt to make soy sauce

About 780 bottles of soy sauce produced by a major seasoning company in Foshan, Guangdong province, have entered the market despite containing a cancer-causing industrial saline solution.

The company, Gaoming Weiji Seasoning Food, produces about a dozen varieties of soy sauce, some under the brand name Weiding, according to city government officials tasked with cracking down on counterfeit goods.

The tainted soy sauce entered small shops in surrounding areas.

The New Express reported that Gaoming Weiji, based in Foshan's Yanghe township in Gaoming district, bought more than 40 tonnes of an industrial saline solution to replace table salt in the making of its soy sauce. The report said the company has an annual output of more than 80,000 boxes of soy sauce.

Residents notified the local government on March 31 about the company's purchase, and investigators with Gaoming district's Industrial and Commerce Bureau went to the factory, where they found three pools, two of which were open-air, containing more than 26 tonnes of salt water with the inedible salt.

The officials also discovered that the factory had recently bought three tonnes of industrial salt water and used it to produce 90 boxes of mushroom-flavoured dark soy sauce, 65 boxes of which were already sold. The remaining boxes were still in stock.