The ubiquitous label Made in China has over the years earned an unenviable reputation of being possibly fake goods, posing a challenge to the world-wide market. This is particularly serious for its neighbor Hong Kong, and especially so in the food industry.

Increasingly transparent media coverage in the past few years over food safety and quality control violations in Mainland China included poor quality milk powder and vermicelli, as well as fake soy sauce and gel-injected artificial eggs, to name a few. These led in turn to major skepticism towards Hong Kong food products that are imported from across the border. Over the past few months, a series of incidents involving fresh produce from the Mainland, such as pork infected by Streptococcus suis, freshwater fish containing the carcinogen malachite green, and pesticide-heavy vegetables, have caused escalation of skepticism into fear and paranoia about what our motherland is feeding us.