Tons of papaya chunks over five years old were seized by a market supervision bureau in eastern China's Zhejiang Province, local media reports.

Tons of papaya chunks over five years old were seized by a market supervision bureau in eastern China's Zhejiang Province, local media reports.

A total of 61.86 tons of frozen papaya chunks produced between 2009 and 2011 with shelf life of two years were seized by the local market supervision bureau of Jiangbei District in Ningbo City in March of this year.

The papaya chunks were stored in a refrigeration warehouse by a local food company and are now at least two years older than their expire dates.

Records at the warehouse show that 25 tons of papaya chunks were sold to a food processing company in Suzhou City of Jiangsu Province in 2013. This means that the fruit was already beyond its shelf life at that point. The frozen fruit was used to make juice and jam, officials say.

The supervision bureau fined the food company1.4 million yuan (US$ 225,423)

The news comes following a stomach-turning news report from late June that more than 100,000 tons of smuggled frozen meat, some dating back to the 1970s, was seized by the customs agency.

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