"The Freedom of Picking Cucumbers" is also a Business Environment Opinion on Promoting the Development and Growth of Private Economy | Picking Cucumbers Freedom

In May this year, a document released by the Zhuzhou Catering Industry Association in Hunan Province sparked heated discussions. According to documents, multiple catering companies in the city have reported to the association that a local father and son have used the excuse that catering companies sell cold dishes such as "patting cucumbers" without a cold food production and sales license to frequently report and demand high compensation from catering companies. Since 2020, a total of 49 reports have been made.

The background of this father son frequent reporting of "patting cucumbers" is the frequent occurrence of cases where food companies have been punished for selling "patting cucumbers" without authorization. Through a search on a certain query platform, it can be seen that as of June 31 this year, there have been over 1600 cases of illegal facts containing keywords such as "cold cucumber, pickled cucumber, and cucumber shreds" and administrative penalties related to cold food, mainly concentrated after 2020. In these cases, there have been cases where operators have been fined large amounts such as 5000 yuan. Especially for cases where subjective intent is not obvious, the circumstances are minor, no harmful consequences are caused, and the value of the case is only a few tens of yuan, but heavy penalties are imposed, it is easy to trigger public opinion discussions after media coverage.

Although occasionally embroiled in controversy, the administrative department actually has legal evidence that those punished food companies have indeed violated relevant regulations. Unlike many people's common sense perception, operating "patting cucumbers" has strict entry barriers and management standards. Taking a certain province's requirements for the review of production and sales licenses for cold and raw food products as an example, it is explicitly required that operators set up corresponding production rooms, with an area of no less than 5 square meters, which should be independent compartments; Install hand washing, disinfection, and changing facilities at the entrance of the dedicated room; Equipped with air disinfection facilities, air conditioning facilities, temperature monitoring devices, tool cleaning and disinfection facilities, and specialized processing tools that meet the requirements. For many small and medium-sized restaurants, achieving these hardware standards is not easy. The production and sale of "auction cucumbers" without meeting hardware standards and obtaining business licenses should indeed be punished in accordance with the law.

Administrative penalties have legal basis, but some debaters still believe that although cold pickled cucumbers and "patting cucumbers" belong to cold and raw food categories and objectively have certain food safety risks, these risks are relatively small and should not be compared to the safety risks of cold processed pastries and cold meat products, and should be treated in a one size fits all manner. Correspondingly, they should not adopt the same entry threshold and apply the same production and operation standards. Furthermore, the selling price of a "pickled cucumber" may only be a few tens or even tens of yuan, but the fines imposed for this may reach several thousand yuan or even more. From a rational perspective, this level of punishment may not necessarily withstand scrutiny.

It may be difficult for the parties involved in the dispute to reach a consensus from different perspectives. However, the repeated emergence of similar controversies has indeed objectively affected the enforcement image of administrative departments, and even affected the seriousness and credibility of relevant regulations and policies. In response to this situation, the State Administration for Market Regulation recently released the "Measures for the Administration of Food Business License and Filing", which clearly states that if food operators engage in simple food safety risks such as thawing, simple heating, blending, combination, plate placement, washing and cutting, etc., local market supervision and management departments at or above the county level can appropriately simplify the review content of equipment and facilities, specialized areas, etc. while ensuring food safety. Analysts believe that this means that after the official implementation of this new regulation, relevant departments are expected to simplify the production and sales of simple foods such as cold dishes represented by "patting cucumbers".

This new regulation, while ensuring food safety, effectively solves the problem of preventing the occurrence of "small mistakes and heavy penalties" from the source, and reflects the balance between law, reason, and emotion in market supervision work. Therefore, it has received widespread praise from public opinion, and some catering operators are delighted to say that it has "achieved the freedom to shoot cucumbers".

In addition to specific policy measures that are commendable, the regulatory philosophy behind giving operators the freedom to buy cucumbers is also commendable. Market regulation should balance leniency and strictness, but how to balance leniency and strictness, and where the specific degree lies, all test the governance level and ability of regulatory authorities.

The Opinion of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the State Council on Promoting the Development and Growth of the Private Economy was recently released, which clearly proposes to promote the development and growth of the private economy from optimizing the development environment, strengthening policy support, and strengthening legal protection. If observed from this perspective, the erroneous tendency of some law enforcement agencies to impose heavy penalties on market operators for minor mistakes should clearly be corrected. In this sense, "achieving the freedom of cucumber auction" is actually a concrete manifestation of optimizing the business and development environment - under the premise of regulations and policies, creating a more relaxed market environment for operators, giving them greater market freedom space, will help stimulate the enthusiasm and potential of market entities for innovation and creation, and better achieve the goal of activating the market and prospering the economy.