An inspector examines products at the food safety inspection center of the Beijing Entry-Exit Inspection and Quarantine Bureau,in this July 18, 2007, file photo. [AP]

BEIJING - China said Monday it will use global positioning satellites to ensure food safety at the Beijing Olympics as it steps up efforts to blacklist manufacturers who violate safety regulations.

Wang Wei, an executive vice president of the Beijing Olympic Committee, said the high-tech system will monitor food production, processing factories and food hygiene during the games to make sure healthy food is delivered to the 10,500 athletes residing in the Olympic Village.

Food products will be affixed with an "Olympic food safety logistics code" and transportation vehicles will be tracked using global positioning satellites, Wang said. He did not provide further details of either plan.

"The whole process will be monitored from the start of production through transportation to the end users," Wang said. "We are very confident about ensuring food safety in Beijing."

Wang said extra measures would also be taken to ensure food safety for the general public.

"During the games some special monitoring mechanisms will also be applied to monitor restaurants and public food sellers to let people know how they can buy safe food," he said.

In a separate announcement, Beijing-based Qianxihe Food Group, an Olympic sponsor, said it had begun selling a hormone-free line of pork for the games, a company official said.

The company's pigs have been fed food without hormones and are part of the "Olympics Special Supply Pork" range, which will be consumed by athletes and can be bought in supermarkets by ordinary citizens, said the official, who would give only her surname Tong.

Wang's comments came after Vice Commerce Minister Gao Hucheng announced that 429 exporters have been blacklisted and punished for producing dangerously substandard products.