China's tech industry takes on food safety

Hong Kong

THE smartphone tells the story of a kiwi fruit in China.

With a quick scan of a code, shoppers can look up the fruit's complete thousand-mile journey from a vine in a lush valley along the upper Yangtze River to a bin in a Beijing supermarket. The smartphone feature, which also details soil and water tests from the farm, is intended to ensure that the kiwi has not been contaminated anywhere along the way.

"I have scanned some electronic products before, but never any food," said Xu Guillin, who tested the tracking function at the supermarket.

Controlling China's sprawling food supply chain has proved a frustrating endeavour. Government regulators and state-owned agriculture companies have tried to tackle the problem in a number of ways - increasing factory inspections, conducting …