Dangers of refined salt

Salt, as one of the "Seven Things to Open the Door", is indispensable for every household. With the improvement of people's living standards, people have begun to pay attention to salt. Refined salt has gradually replaced the coarse salt with large impurities in the past. However, some unscrupulous traders take advantage of people's mentality of "removing the roughness and seeking the refinement" of salt, and even use industrial salt to process refined salt and make ill-gotten gains. Recently, the Shanghai industrial and commercial department has stepped up its crackdown and investigated and dealt with a number of illegal traders.

Yang from Anhui is such an unscrupulous vendor. He took a fancy to the characteristics of Shanghainese people who want refined salt when eating salt, and specialized in making fake refined salt to make profits. Yang rented a private house in the suburban area as a production site, and recruited several outsiders from the society. The job assigned to them every day was to crush the industrial salt he bought from the chemical factory with a crusher, and then pack it into pieces. The whole process of making refined salt is completed by sealing the plastic bags with the name of the salt industry company bought from some private printing plants in other places with a sealing machine and affixing the anti-counterfeiting signs also printed by private parties. Yang knew that the fake refined salt he made could not be put on the shelves of regular supermarkets and large food stores, so he set his sights on individual restaurants and private grocery stores, using low prices and door-to-door delivery. Business was actually good, and he was busy. When you get up, use a pickup truck to deliver the goods. If the industrial and commercial department hadn't quickly seized him and destroyed his counterfeiting den based on reports from the masses, we don't know how much fake refined salt would have flowed into the market.

Although Fang, known as "Awang", is not good-looking and is a small owner of a grocery store, the business of his grocery store is surprisingly good. People often come to him on yellow croaker carts. The store comes to batch goods, especially refined salt, which is shipped out in sacks. What is even more puzzling is that the price of the salt he sells is extremely cheap. In general stores and supermarkets, refined salt labeled as low sodium costs 0.6 yuan per 0.5 kilograms, while "Awang" sells refined salt of the same weight for only 0.45 yuan. Yuan, with a gross profit margin of 25. Someone asked him, "How can you still make money when you sell at such a low price?" At this time, "Awang" always smiled and did not answer. It was not until recently that the industrial and commercial department tracked down the source of the counterfeiting and found out the truth about it: "Awang" opened a grocery store, selling groceries in the front, and making counterfeit goods in the back. He bought industrial salt at a price of 250 yuan per ton, made it into so-called "refined salt", and then sold it out at a price of 600 yuan per ton. The profit was 140 yuan, so even though he sold the salt with a gross profit margin of 25 , deducting this part of the gross profit, he naturally has a huge profit. No wonder his "business" is so good.

According to health experts, industrial salt contains high levels of nitrates, which can cause harm to the human body after long-term consumption, especially serious kidney damage to teenagers and the elderly. Therefore, health experts remind people to go to regular supermarkets and large stores when buying refined salt, and never go to small grocery stores for cheap and convenience. It is hoped that industry and commerce will strengthen supervision of the salt market and prevent unscrupulous traders from rebranding industrial salt into the market.