Toxic Paint Used To Make Children's Food Look More Colourful as China Hands Kindergarten Owner Life Sentence
A Chinese court has jailed the owner of a kindergarten for life after toxic paint was added to children's food to make it look more colourful. Li Huifang and five others were sentenced on Friday 16 October 2026 over the kindergarten lead poisoning case in Tianshui, Gansu province,after 247 preschoolers were found to have abnormal blood lead levels.
Court Hands Down Life Sentence in Tianshui
The Intermediate People's Court of Lanzhou City handed down the verdicts, Xinhua reported. It found that Li, the person in charge of the kindergarten in Maiji District, and Zhu, the executive principal, instructed and organised the addition of toxic materials to food served to children and staff, so that meals looked more colourful and attractive for marketing.
Li was also deprived of political rights for life and had personal property confiscated. State broadcaster CCTV said the four kitchen workers received sentences of between six and eight years, according to the Associated Press. The court ruled that Li and Zhu had told those workers to add the substances.
How Kindergarten Lead Poisoning Came to Light
The private kindergarten obtained its operating certificate in 2022. Authorities began investigating on 1 July 2025 after members of the public reported abnormally high lead levels in children at the school. A week later, the Tianshui government said 233 of 251 children tested had high blood lead levels, along with several teachers.
Eight people, including the principal, were detained, according to a Tianshui government report cited by CCTV. The report said the paint contained lead and its packaging was clearly marked as non-edible, which left little room for ambiguity. Two food samples, a red date steamed breakfast cake and a sausage corn roll, contained lead at more than 2,000 times the national standard.
Reported lead concentrations in each sample exceeded 1,000 milligrams per kilogram, against China's national limit of 0.5. The final tally of affected children rose to 247, Xinhua said.
Three nearby kindergartens, Weibei, Ci'ai and Mengdi'ai, tested normal. More than 20 staff at the school also had elevated blood lead levels. Pupils there were first enrolled in August 2024.
Treatment, Scrutiny and Tighter Rules
All 247 children were hospitalised or given home-based nutritional treatment, and most had completed a first course and left hospital by 20 July 2025, Xinhua said. High levels of lead exposure can damage a child's brain and nervous system, the Associated Press noted.
The South China Morning Post described the case as the country's worst food safety scandal for almost two decades. The Tianshui government said at the time that it was deeply saddened by the harm done to the children and their parents.
Regulators have since moved to tighten oversight. In March 2026, the State Administration for Market Regulation and the Ministry of Education drafted rules requiring kindergartens to take primary responsibility for food safety, with daily, weekly and monthly inspections, and encouraging real-time kitchen video monitoring. The provisions also require staff training and the retention of food samples.
The Gansu provincial government has pledged full support for the children's medical care, Xinhua reported, as the Tianshui kindergarten lead poisoning case reached a verdict on Friday more than a year after the first tests raised the alarm.