BOCOG: report on beer-fed vegetables untrue

(BEIJING, December 28) -- An official of the Games Services Department of the Beijing Organizing Committee for the Games of the XXIX Olympiad (BOCOG) refuted Friday a recent media report that claimed some of the vegetables to be grown for and offered on the Olympic menus will be fertilized by beer and soybean milk.

Having BOCOG and the concerned authorities of the Beijing municipal government select the Olympic food suppliers is to ensure an abundant food supply and food safety, the official said. He added that all of the potential suppliers are existing producers; the raw materials for Olympic catering are not specially planted or manufactured, and they are available to the city's residents, too.

The foresaid report about Olympic vegetables fed by beer and milk is false, the official said. The vegetable planting base mentioned in the report is a place to plant vegetables with organic fertilizers. The growers do not use chemical fertilizers; rather, they ferment soybeans, which are placed under the soil of vegetables as a fertilizer.

The official said the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games serve as a vast platform to showcase the food products of Chinese suppliers to the world. Under the precondition of observing Olympic marketing practices, the BOCOG Games Services Department and the Beijing Municipal Bureau of Commerce have selected a series of outstanding food and raw material suppliers from Beijing and nationwide to ensure the supply of a variety of quality and safe foods during the Olympic Games. All the suppliers are under the scrutiny of the food security control and monitoring system of the municipality.