Almost half of Chinese food-processing plants fail to meet internationally acceptable standards, new figures suggest.

Quality control specialist AsiaInspection said 48% of the “several thousand” inspections, audits and tests it conducted in China last year failed to meet the requirements stipulated by some of its clients — Western food trading companies and retailers.

“There are horror stories, obviously,” Mathieu Labasse, AsiaInspection’s vice president told CNN by phone. “We find factories that just have no basic idea about hygiene standards. People that handle the food, they have no gloves, nothing.”

Labasse said there was a host of reasons for the failings. In some cases, laboratory tests found abnormal levels of pesticides, antibiotics, heavy metals, bacteria or viruses that could put consumers at risk.

Other transgressions included mislabeling packaging, abnormal coloring and odors, bruising and, in the case of seafood, adding water to make the fish appear to weigh more than it does.