Posted: January 30th, 2011 - 2:41pm by Doug Powell

The Xinhua News Agency reports a total of 248 people were arrested in China last year for involvement in food safety cases.

The country dealt with 130,000 cases involving food safety last year, including 115 criminal cases, according to a statement of the National Food Safety Regulating Work Office.

The cases touched upon such areas as production of edible agricultural produce, food production, food circulation, catering services and food exports and imports.

"No major incident occurred last year, and the overall food safety situation maintained stable," said the statement.

Last year also saw a nationwide crackdown on "gutter oil", usually made from discarded kitchen waste that has been refined, after media reports that it was commonly used by small restaurants.

A total of 191 officials were punished for failing to do their duty in food safety enforcement, with 26 of them fired, it said.