Fruit store caught with dyed oranges (2)

The store's owner denied that he dyed the oranges, according to a report on the news website Eastday.com. He explained that he didn't realize the fruit had been dyed until officers came to his store. He promised to offer refunds to anyone who bought the oranges.

Xu said the fruit had been dyed heavily enough that it rubbed off on the hands of anyone who handled it. "Your hands would turn red just by touching the oranges," he told the Global Times.

According to the consumer rights law, the store owner should not only refund customers' money, but also offer additional compensation, Ruan said.

It would be difficult for authorities to determine who dyed the oranges because there is a long, complex chain of fruit wholesalers between the farms and the stores, Xu said.

The local government is planning to create a fruit tracking system, said Gu Zhenhua, deputy director of the Shanghai Municipal Food Safety Office. The system would be akin to the system used to track pork in the city, which is capable of tracing a product back through the chain of wholesalers to the farm where the pig was raised.

However, Gu also pointed out that it took the local government seven years to launch that system.