Shanghai, the megacity of 26 million people, has been under lockdown for more than a month. Recently, many Shanghai residents have complained online that some of the food distributed by the local authorities has deteriorated and is not edible at all, and have questioned the legitimacy of the authorities’ food supply process.
On Chinese social media, many Shanghai residents posted that they have received moldy rice, and meat containing maggots. Some communities urgently recalled moldy duck meat contained in rationed food provided by local authorities.
A resident surnamed Yang from Mingzhuyuan community in the city’s Pudong district recently told The Epoch Times that her husband had diarrhea after eating a ham sausage received from authorities. Yang said that the rationed food is inferior quality products supplied from unknown manufacturers.
Yang did some online searches and found the manufacturer of the salted duck she received was a company with a poor record on quality.
“I found out online that [the company] was punished on April 16, 2021, for using preservatives that exceeded the standard,” she said.
Yang said that her community has been locked down since March 16. Residents cannot go out to buy food or supplies, most of the stores are closed, online shopping is difficult, and delivery is paralyzed due to the city-wide lockdown. Their community received rationed food from authorities on four occasions over about a month, but the food had been inferior in quality and some were even spoiled.
“We received food of different brands. Some have already expired, and some are moldy. Are they [authorities] treating us like trash cans?”
Yang said that there’s a lack of transparency in the authorities’ sourcing methods and questioned if the process is legal. “You [local authorities] now tell us first, the value and process of your entire procurement, if they are legal, and how did you find these food suppliers?” she wrote in a social media group comprising the residents of her community.
Amid Shanghai’s lockdown, the authorities have monopolized the supply channels of daily necessities, Yang said. “The lockdown of the city has caused two major problems, one is access to medical care, the other is food supplies. This is related to our survival, we need to eat, you [authorities] have to solve it for us. Instead, you shut down our takeout delivery, stopped the delivery app; it’s very strange. ”
The Epoch Times called the sub-district office to inquire about the matter, but the call could not be connected.
Another Shanghai resident surnamed Li also spoke of the difficulty of obtaining food given that food and delivery apps had collapsed under extreme demand.
“If they hadn’t shut down takeout service and express delivery, we wouldn’t have panicked,” Li said.
“I didn’t expect that they would shut the city down for a month. We can only endure the hardships, and it’s very difficult to live like that. Many of us have checked the last batch of the food that the government sent. You cannot find the products anywhere on major online shopping platforms. They all have bad food safety records. Why send us this kind of stuff?”
The resident continued: “We are not refugees. We are cooperating with the government’s lockdown. What we want is basic respect. Don’t give us spoiled products from companies with bad records at this difficult time.”
Li slammed the city for imposing a heavy-handed lockdown to contain the fast-spreading Omicron variant, an approach he considers futile.
“Now, most citizens think that this method [lockdown] is not applicable to a megacity like Shanghai,” he said.
“This approach is too stupid. Now they (authorities) are still insisting on ‘COVID-zero’. It’s impossible to clear the number of infections. There are people tested positive every day.”
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