Liu Minxia

    mllmx@msn.com

    FIVE local supermarkets are partnering with four primary schools in Shenzhen in a food safety education program that was launched yesterday by a French retailer and the Chinese Youth Foundation.

    A group of primary school students from Nanshan Primary School Attached to Beijing Normal University, led by Bertrand Furno, French consul-general in Guangzhou, went to a Carrefour store in Houhai to test levels of pesticide residue and bake cakes yesterday after the “One Store One School One Farm” program was launched. Along with students from three other Shenzhen primary schools, they will have the chance to grow and pick vegetables and fruit on nearby farms, as well as learn marketing skills at the French retailer’s Shenzhen stores.

    “The program is designed to show them that every step is equally important, from growing plants and breeding animals on the farm to transforming and selling the product in the factory and the store, and finally cooking it at home. In a few words, ‘from the Farm to the Fork,’ as we say in France or rather to the chopsticks here in China,” said Furno. “I am sure that the students will learn a lot from the various experiences, such as working on the farm, discovering the complex selling process in Carrefour stores and cooking or baking the products. It will help them be well-informed and responsible consumers and citizens in the future.”

    The program, with a 7 million yuan (US$1.02 million) investment from the Carrefour Foundation, is expected to include 100 Carrefour stores and 100 schools in China between 2015 and 2018.