Milk Powder Scandals

I started off this blog way back in 2008 when the world was shocked with the issue of milk powder in China being contaminated by melamine which took the lives of reported 6 children and affected the lives of over 300,000. Subsequently, we were also informed that the contaminated milk was used to produce a variety of dairy products such as chocolate bars, biscuits and candies. Fonterra, the largest milk producer in New Zealand was embroiled right in the thick of things as their associate company in China, Sanlu Group was reported to be the major culprit with the contaminated milk sold.

5 years later, milk powder has become the one single major issue and concern of most new parents today in China, in particular in larger cities such as Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou. Imported milk powders in China are extremely expensive and beyond the reach of many, except the rich and super rich. A can of Pediasure 800g for example is sold for over RMB240 (RM120). That is almost the price of a can of 1.8kg Pediasure sold back home in Malaysia, where we could get around RM136 to RM146 per can. (Differences in Pediasure milk powder detected in the following post – stay tuned)

Before Hong Kong imposed a ban, most mainland China nationals have resorted to buying huge quantity of imported milk powder from Hong Kong. With the ban, many have  depended on friends to bring them in from overseas or buying them online. China Chinese are mostly very enterprising and hence, dozens of websites or online stores have sprung up selling and fuelling the demand and need. So bad was the demand that fake imported milk powder and expired products were detected. There were even reports that accused a certain local partner of a Swiss baby formula of deliberately mislabelling milk powder in March. They were accused of changing expiration dates of older children milk powder, and re-labelling them as pricier ones for younger babies!

Another report accused Heitiki, a milk powder brand which its distributor in Shenzhen claimed as a “top brand” in New Zealand, was discovered in 2011 to be registered by Chinese businessman and unknown to New Zealanders!

Another interesting instance (if I remembered correctly seeing it on TV a couple of months back) was where a check of the manufacturer of a particular brand of New Zealand milk powder reported by a local importer was traced back to a mechanic shop in New Zealand.

Everyone is telling me to look into the possibilities of bringing in milk powder into China and make big bucks. Well, any idiot (so to speak) would know that but to do it legally would be almost be impossible considering the level of red tapes and ‘connections’ one has to have to bring this lucrative goldmine into China.

We are having the same problems with milk powder too and we have resorted to bringing in as many cans as we can possibly carry with us back to Beijing every time we go back to Malaysia. At the rate of which both Ryan and Chenya are drinking milk powder, we are currently consuming one 1.8kg can a week! And the most we could carry at any one time were probably 10 to 12 cans!

China Daily headlined today there have been a major recall of dairy products contaminated with Clostridium botulinum in whey protein, a deadly bacteria which could kill if consumed. Dumex is apparently one of the many major brands affected. It was reported that a total of 900 tonnes of the contaminated raw materials were exported to countries such as China, Malaysia, Australia, Vietnam, Thailand and Saudi Arabia although no specific companies have been named.

It was reported that China has already imposed a ban on the import of all milk powder from New Zealand with immediate effect.

So, where does all this take us in China?

I believe all these will fuel the demand for imported milk powder even further and trust the `enterprising’ individuals in this competitive part of the world to think of ways and means to convert this into another opportunity to generate another quick dollar from unsuspecting parents who are more than willing to folk out more money to get that extra can of `imported’ milk powder for their `emperor’ or `princess’ at home.

Before too long, we could probably hear news of New Zealand milk powder or even local milk powder being re-branded or relabelled as those imported from Netherlands or USA being marketed or sold online.

After all, CHINA is a world of opportunities!