Yellow River water nourishes the Ningxia plain, where Tan sheep and goji berries have earned lasting fame.

As the Mid-Autumn Festival and National Day arrive, specialty agricultural products from Ningxia such as Yanchi Tan sheep and Zhongning goji berries are entering their annual sales peak.

To safeguard consumer food safety and protect the reputation of geographical indication brands, local authorities in recent years have used measures including technical anti-counterfeiting, coordinated law enforcement, and traceability controls to give every Tan sheep and every goji berry an "identity card," cracking down on counterfeiting and disorder so consumers can buy with confidence and eat with peace of mind.

As China's hometown of Tan sheep, Yanchi County's Tan sheep brand value has reached 13.537 billion yuan.

Yanchi County has anchored its efforts on protecting the "Yanchi Tan sheep" geographical indication and relied on Ningxia's "Mutoutong" information traceability platform to build a full-chain "one sheep, one code" traceability system covering breeding, transportation, slaughter, sales, and the dining table, enabling all mutton products to reach the market with codes.

"Consumers can scan the code to check the place of origin, slaughter, and quarantine information. It now covers more than 9,000 farms and over 300 distributors. In terms of services, we take the initiative to guide enterprises in standardizing label use and improving quality management. The geographical indication usage rate has now reached 89.8%," said Li Xuechun, director of the Yanchi County Market Supervision Bureau.

Zhongning County, meanwhile, focuses on source control and end-to-end authenticity protection, fully implementing a "four labels and one code" traceability management system for goji berries and innovatively building a "central warehouse plus distributed sub-warehouses" authenticity warehouse operation system.

It has completed a county-level central main warehouse with a capacity of 5,000 tons and multiple enterprise distributed sub-warehouses, continuously strengthening large-scale and standardized warehousing control capabilities.

At the same time, it has built a full-area inspection system consisting of a national-level testing center, CMA-certified institutions, and village-level rapid testing rooms, strictly implementing full-item testing upon warehouse entry and a system of market release only after passing and coding, achieving closed-loop management of unified testing, warehousing, outbound delivery, and traceability to prevent counterfeit and inferior products at the source.

As of the end of May 2026, 1,079 goji berry products from 63 enterprises across the county had been included in official traceability management.

"Every package of authentic Zhongning goji berries carries 'four labels and one code,' namely the Zhongning goji berry geographical indication certification trademark, the special geographical indication mark, the public agricultural product geographical indication mark, the enterprise's own trademark, and a traceability code. This is like the goji berry's 'identity card.' Consumers can scan the code to view the planting plot, field management, harvest time, testing reports, and other full-chain information," said Zhu Yanhua, president of the Zhongning Goji Berry Industry Association.

At the same time, in response to prominent problems such as counterfeit goji berries on e-commerce platforms and non-local mutton passed off as "Yanchi Tan sheep," regulators have continued to intensify enforcement.

Zhongning County regularly conducts dynamic monitoring of online transactions and advertising, promptly investigates and handles clues on violations, routinely organizes talks and compliance training for business operators, and guides merchants to operate in a standardized way.

Relying on the national intellectual property protection alliance, it has established a cross-regional rights protection mechanism covering 30 provinces, autonomous regions, and municipalities, greatly improving the overall protection of the "Zhongning goji berry" brand.

Yanchi County has deepened coordinated "administrative plus judicial" protection and joined the "YiqiwEI" intellectual property protection alliance of 12 provinces and cities nationwide.

It has improved the rapid response mechanism for reports and complaints, carried out rights protection and anti-counterfeiting actions against "Yanchi Tan sheep" trademark sales on e-commerce platforms, filed lawsuits against 82 e-commerce platform sellers and transferred 38 suspected trademark infringement clues, continuously improving online and offline rights protection effectiveness.

"Protecting the brand means protecting the industry and protecting farmers' wallets," Li Xuechun said.