China Nursery Owner Jailed for Life After Lead-Tainted Food Poisons Hundreds of Children

A kindergarten owner in China has been sentenced to life in prison after an investigation found she and her staff had poisoned more than 200 children with food laced with toxic lead.

Li Huifang, who ran the Heshi Peixin Kindergarten in Tianshui, Gansu province, was convicted of producing and selling toxic and harmful food, Chinese state media reported. The case came to light in July 2025, when 247 pupils and staff at the nursery were found to have abnormally high blood lead levels after children began falling ill. Investigators determined kitchen staff had mixed inedible paint into meals — including steamed red date cakes and sausage corn buns — to make the food look more appealing to students, despite the paint being clearly labelled as unsuitable for consumption. Testing found lead levels in the cakes and buns reaching 1,052mg/kg and 1,340mg/kg respectively, more than 2,000 times China’s national safety limit of 0.5mg/kg.

Alongside the life sentence, the Lanzhou Intermediate People’s Court ordered the confiscation of 500,000 yuan (£56,200; $74,700) of Li’s personal assets, broadcaster CCTV reported. The school’s executive principal, Zhi Jinglin, received 15 years in prison and a 300,000-yuan fine, while four kitchen staff found to have followed the pair’s instructions to add harmful ingredients were sentenced to between six and eight years.

According to the World Health Organization, lead poisoning is “particularly harmful to young children” and can “severely damage the brain and central nervous system.” Officials separately found that a number of provincial officials and hospital staff had tried to cover up the incident, tampering with blood test results after accepting bribes from a nursery investor.

In response, China has introduced national guidelines for school meal provision, requiring every new batch of food to be tested and mandating that flour, rice and cooking oil be bought only through centralised procurement channels.

Source: BBC News