A scandal over cooking-oil contamination in China that came to light earlier in July highlights the long-standing struggle to improve food safety measures.
The scandal, first revealed by state-backed media The Beijing News on July 2, involves two Chinese companies that reportedly used fuel trucks to transport edible oil without any cleaning process between loads.
Authorities announced a high-level investigation amid public outrage.
"What's most important is how to convince the people that similar incidents will never happen again," read one comment that got thousands of likes on the Chinese microblogging platform Weibo.
This is not the first nationwide scandal over food safety issues.
In 2005 and 2015, Chinese media uncovered similar practices of improperly transporting food oil.
Another food safety problem known to authorities is the use of "gutter oil," which is cooking oil recycled from drains and grease traps, and cheaply sold off to restaurants.
John Kojiro Yasuda, an associate professor of political science at Baltimore's Johns Hopkins University in the US, who has researched Chinese regulatory reform, told DW that this latest episode indicated that China is still "at the beginning stages of transforming its food system," despite decades of effort.
"It's really a........