Stricter milk standards may restore public faith
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| Song Kungang | Ren Fazheng |
Xinhua: Chinese consumers always think foreign brands of milk powder are superior. Do those foreign brands have much better nutrient content than domestic ones?
Wang: All brands in the Chinese market should meet our national standards. Products made under the same standards are at the same technological level. For those imported brands, although they are manufactured abroad, they must comply with China's national standards when entering Chinese market.
Xinhua: The mainland consumers lack of confidence in the domestic milk powder brands is partly caused by the Sanlu milk incident. Is imported powder milk absolutely safe? Is there any quality problem?
Song: The dairy industry is quite a special one and has the highest quality and safety requirements. Quality and safety incidents in dairy industry happen both domestically and internationally.
For example, dioxin poisoning incidents happened in Belgium, Holland, France and Germany in 1999, and many countries stopped importing dairy products from these four countries. In 2000, the Snow Brand Milk of Japan suffered staphylococcus aureus contamination. More than 10,000 people suffered from vomiting and diarrhea, of which 141 were hospitalized. In 2008, Italian-produced mozzarella was contaminated by dioxin, and another 25 brands were also found to contain dioxin. In 2009, 15 brands of infant formula milk powder in the US were found to contain perchlorate, a chemical substance can be used as explosive and rocket fuel. In fact, dairy contamination incidents in other countries are not rare.
Xinhua: After the Sanlu milk scandal, what efforts has the government made to adjust the dairy industry?
Song: We learned a big lesson from the Sanlu milk scandal. The great losses that the industry suffered was the price paid. However, the incident aroused central government's attention toward dairy products safety. The relevant authorities issued a series of policies and regulations to safeguard the quality of dairy products. The most important one is the Administrative Regulations on Supervision of Quality and Safety of Milk Products. It is the first special law to be passed concerning the food industry.
The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology developed a reorganized and transformed plan to improve the dairy industry, while another 13 authorities such as the National Development and Reform Commission developed a readjustment and revitalization framework for the dairy industry as well as regulations for fresh milk management.
Judging by the current situation, those regulations and laws in dairy industry are quite comprehensive. Dairy cattle feeding, milk station management and milk transportation and so on have been all included. Government supervision of the dairy industry has really been greatly improved.
