Nov 24, 2016 07:06 PM

Live Fish Vanish from Supermarket Tanks Ahead of Planned Safety Checks

Empty tanks for freshwater fish are on display Thursday at Carrefour's Tiantongyuan store in Beijing's Changping district. The store stopped selling freshwater fish two weeks ago. Photo: Yang Yifan/Caixin

Live freshwater fish have been disappearing from Beijing's supermarkets — a phenomenon that the China Food and Drug Administration (CFDA) attributes to leaked news of impending food safety inspections.

Sixteen out of 20 supermarkets visited by Beijing Youth Daily reporters in the city's Tongzhou district did not have any stock of live fish. These included branches of major chains like Wal-Mart, Carrefour, Yonghui and Wumart.