The incident of mixed loading of oil tankers continues to attract attention from the people in mainland China. Due to concerns about the safety of edible oil, many people have opted to buy oil presses. Relevant data from the mainland shows that the sales of oil presses have quadrupled within 8 days from July 5th to July 12th.
On July 13th, the topic of “Oil Press Sales Quadrupled Overnight” trended on social media platforms in mainland China.
According to a report by the Shandong Business News, data indicates that within the 8-day period from July 5th to July 12th, the search volume for oil presses increased by 22 times, while the sales volume increased by 4 times.
The report mentioned that there has been a phenomenon of oil press frenzy on online shopping platforms in mainland China. More than 60% of consumers are male, with people born in the 70s and 80s being the main buyers of oil presses.
According to economic observations by Times Finance, on Taobao, a small household oil press priced at around 500 yuan had over 100 purchases within 24 hours; another household oil press priced at 750 yuan had over 500 additional purchases within three days. Taobao customer service also confirmed that there has been a significant increase in inquiries from consumers looking to buy household oil presses in recent days.
In addition to online platforms, there has been a rush to purchase edible oil products offline as well.
On July 10th, several netizens from Henan province posted videos showing customers flooding into the Pang Donglai Supermarket in Zhengzhou to buy grocery items. Peanuts oil and sunflower seed oil at Pang Donglai were sold out. Many customers lined up outside the supermarket, eagerly waiting to purchase edible oils.
On the 2nd of this month, the Beijing News reported that after a long period of investigation and tracking, journalists found that many tankers in China were transporting not only edible liquids such as syrup and soybean oil but also chemicals like coal-oil. The public defines this practice as “poisoning”.
Following the escalation of the related incidents, the freight tracking function on the “Freight Assistance” app in mainland China was removed. The Beijing News reporter Han Futao, who reported on the incident, was reported missing, and his Weibo account was suspended.