Regarding the destination of the edible oil transported by the Chinese coal oil tanker truck, more clues have emerged.
As the coal-to-oil tanker truck transporting edible oil incident exposed by The Beijing News attracted widespread attention, more information about the destination of this batch of edible oil has come to light. On July 9th, blogger @GaoJianLi released a video program on social media claiming that by capturing the electronic screen content when the tanker truck was weighed, The Beijing News reporter collected the license plate of one of the involved vehicles, with the plate number “冀E5476W”. Using an open-source positioning platform, the driving trajectory of the truck was found.
Interface News confirmed the accuracy of this type of open-source platform trajectory from tanker truck industry insiders.
The driving trajectory shows that on May 21, 2024, the vehicle loaded coal oil from the logistics center of the National Energy Group’s “Ningxia Coal Industry Coal-to-Oil Chemical Sales Branch” in Ningdong Town, Yinchuan. On May 23, it arrived at Hebei Huali Oil Co., Ltd. (Shijiazhuang) to unload the goods.
Subsequently, on May 24, the vehicle went to the involved Zhongchu Grain & Oil (Tianjin) Co., Ltd. to load edible oil. According to The Beijing News report, the tank was not cleaned in between.
After loading edible oil, the tanker truck first arrived at Hanzhong Mian County Xinli Oil Co., Ltd. to unload the oil.
After searching public information, Interface News found that this is a county-level enterprise mainly engaged in the processing of agricultural and sideline products, with rapeseed oil being a specialty of Mian County. Xinli Oil Co. was recognized as a “city-level key leading enterprise in agricultural industrialization” in a government notice from Hanzhong City in 2018.
The products of Xinli Oil Co. are mainly sold locally in Hanzhong and even Mian County. Interface News found from business information that it owns nine trademarks including “HanJiaXiang”, “MianShuiHua”, “MianZhouHua”, “MianShuiWan”, and “XinLi”, but a search on public platforms did not find agricultural products matching these brands.
However, bidding information shows that from 2019 to 2023, the company won bids six times for canteens in colleges and institutions in Hanzhong and Mian County, including three bids from Mian County Civil Affairs Bureau and three bids from Shaanxi University of Technology (and its logistics department) and Hanzhong Vocational and Technical College.
It is worth noting that an administrative penalty in Mian County in 2022 shows that Xinli Oil Co. was warned by the local market supervision bureau in 2022 for producing and operating food that did not meet food safety standards.
Following the driving trajectory, on May 28, the vehicle returned to Ningxia to load coal oil, arriving near Shadi Airport in Foshan, Guangdong, to unload on June 1. On the same day, it loaded edible oil from Zhongfang Grain & Oil (Dongguan) Co., Ltd. and hit the road again. Three days later, on June 4, it arrived at the Golden Dragon Fish edible oil factory in Xianyang to unload the oil.
Looking at the information of the supplying company, the Tianyancha app shows that Zhongfang Grain & Oil’s subsidiaries in Dongguan have been deregistered, but Interface News found on the map that there is indeed a place called “Zhongfang Grain & Oil Dongguan Co., Ltd.” near Shui Xiang Avenue in Dongguan. According to previous business information, Zhongfang Grain & Oil (Dongguan) is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Zhongfang Grain & Oil Import & Export Co., Ltd., which is owned by COFCO Group.
Dongguan is a strategic location for Zhongfang Grain & Oil in the Pearl River Delta, with edible oil brands including “Fortune” and “Fortune Little Premium”.
The tanker truck loaded with oil from Zhongfang Grain & Oil (Dongguan) arrived at the Golden Dragon Fish edible oil factory in Xianyang to unload.
Interface News saw on the map information that there is a Golden Dragon Fish company on Xianxing Road named “Yihai Kerry (Xingping) Food Industry Co., Ltd.” According to Tianyancha app information, this is almost a wholly-owned subsidiary of Golden Dragon Fish, with a 97% shareholding. The brands involved are extensive, including “Golden Dragon Fish”, “Orchid Oil”, “Olive Land”, and others.
The Tianyancha app shows that Yihai Kerry (Xingping) Food Industry Co., Ltd. was established on November 30, 2007, with a registered capital of $38.9 million. The company is located in the Xingping Food Industrial Park in Xianyang, covering an area of 449 acres. It is built in three phases, mainly constructing edible oil pressing, refining production lines, small packaging oil production lines, supporting oil tank construction, railway special transportation lines, and flour production lines for wheat.
It is noteworthy that 1.3 kilometers away from this processing plant, there is also a pre-made dish factory of Yihai Kerry called Fengchu (Xingping) Food Co., Ltd. Public information shows that Fengchu (Xingping) Food Co., Ltd. plans to invest 4 billion yuan, and the first phase of the factory, which has been built and put into production, focuses on student meals, supplemented by pre-made dishes, meal kits, and semi-finished processing.
The general manager of this company and Yihai Kerry (Xingping) Food Industry is the same person. Interface News visited the pre-made dish factory in April 2024 and learned that the central kitchen factory currently produces about 5,000 student meals per day, expected to reach 15,000 to 20,000 per day in the second half of this year.
It is still unclear whether there is any related supply and edible oil circulation between the two factories.
Golden Dragon Fish responded to the incident on July 9 but did not provide more details. It stated that the company has strict supervision over the transportation of edible oil, saying “We implement and enforce the relevant national laws and regulations on edible oil transportation and have established group management systems, which are strictly implemented by all factories. The transportation tools for edible oil must comply with the ‘Edible Vegetable Oil Bulk Transportation Specification’ to ensure product quality and safety.”
In fact, according to the driving trajectory, apart from the two companies exposed by The Beijing News, the truck has been shuttling between different edible oil manufacturers and coal-to-oil manufacturers in the past six months.
Other edible oil-related companies involved include Yihai Kerry (Wuhan) Grain and Oil Industry Co., Ltd., Henan Zhengkang Grain and Oil Co., Ltd., Shaanxi Xirui Group Grain and Oil Food Storage and Logistics Processing Base, etc. The company types include state-owned enterprises, private enterprises, and foreign-funded enterprises. During this period, the truck also transported feed.
Another involved company in this incident, Huifu Grain & Oil Group, once stated that the bulk oil sold was picked up by customers themselves and could flow to the market in any form. It is unclear whether the customer channels are mainly for catering or retail.
Interface News also saw a list of bulk oil sales customers claimed by Huifu Grain & Oil on its official WeChat account, many of which are catering supply chain enterprises.
On July 9, an insider in the grain and oil industry told Interface News that Huifu Grain & Oil Group’s customer base is very large, potentially involving many small and medium-sized food factories, making it difficult to judge the destination of this batch of “problematic oil” from currently available information.
The adverse impact of this incident has already affected the entire edible oil industry.
Shandong Luhua Group issued a statement on July 9, stating that it will implement a “strict front-end, supervision process, full traceability” food safety risk control strategy to control the entire chain.
The State Council Food Safety Office has also established a joint investigation team to thoroughly investigate the chaos in edible oil tanker truck transportation.
People’s Daily reported that in response to the “chaos in edible oil tanker truck transportation” reflected by the media, the State Council Food Safety Office attached great importance and organized departments including the National Development and Reform Commission, the Ministry of Public Security, the Ministry of Transport, the State Administration for Market Regulation, and the National Food and Strategic Reserves Administration to hold a special meeting to study and establish a joint investigation team to thoroughly investigate the issues in the edible oil tanker truck transportation link. Any illegal enterprises and related responsible persons will be severely punished according to the law, with no tolerance. At the same time, a special investigation of edible oil risk hazards will be conducted. The results of the investigation and disposal will be announced in due course.
The final destination of the involved edible oil is still pending announcement by the relevant departments. However, regarding this incident, in addition to questioning the destination of the “problematic oil,” it is more important to hold accountable the lack of food safety supervision throughout the entire process, as well as the protection and compensation of consumer rights involved, for which the public is also waiting for more information.