The crackdown is contained in an official Notice on Food Safety issued by General Office of the State Council in 2011, MOFCOM, MPS, MOA, SAIC, AQSIQ and SFDA.

The notices calls on local authorities to make it a priority to outlaw specialised village (household) and illegal slaughtering. They are to take action on the whole process of illegal butchering, focus on comprehensive control of illegal slaughtering, crack down on criminals and criminal gangs, put forward standardised production and management practices and improve market orders of butchering and meat products.

Local authorities should are to ensure that cities should be supplied from official slaughterhouses from July next yea and towns should be supplied from official slaughter facilities by October next year.

The notice calls for a five pronged attack on illegal slaughtering.

Firstly the authorities have to crack down on illegal processing operations in remote rural villages, urban fringesand on major roads and side streets.

Secondly they will have to strengthen the use of qualification certificates and licenses of selected slaughtering enterprises, and come down hard on lending or transferring of butchering certificates and the fraudulent use of fake certificates or signs.

Third, the authorities will impose a strict inspection of pig slaughtering plants, severely crack down the appearance of uninspected and substandard meat products.

Fourth, they will make wholesale markets, farmers markets, bazaars and supermarkets key points for inspection of pork and severely crack down on selling uninspected and substandard meat products.

Finally the authorities will concentrate on specialised villages and small factories for meat products processing, schools, construction site canteens, small restaurants and catering institutions in tourist areas and they will severely crack down on the use of privately slaughtered meat products.

The Notice stressed that local authorities should plan to take tough action against private slaughter plants, the use of the drug clenbuterol in pig meat, water-injected meat and diseases found in the meat.

They have ben instructed to build up a cooperative system to crack down on private slaughtering.

MOFCOM, MPA, MOA, SAIC, AQSIQ and SFDA are to collaborate closely to step up law enforcement and form an entire seamless regulatory chain to combat private illegal slaughtering.

The Six ministries will examine and evaluate the special actions and carry out on-the-spot inspections on major regions and targets.