Dairy industry shunned by public

Public trust in China's dairy industry is lower than ever because of recent incidents including one in which infants died, an ongoing survey has found.

The online survey by sina.com showed yesterday that 80.5 per cent of nearly 200,000 netizens said they would no longer buy Bright Dairy products although 72.9 per cent did once trust the brand.

The nerves have been sparked by three recent findings at the dairy in various parts of the country, including the reprocessing of expired milk and the incidents of pre-dating products.

Last month, a formula milk made by multinational giant Nestle was found to have excess iodine in it.

And last year the industry was shocked when infants actually died from consuming milk with no nutritional value made in Fuyang of East China's Anhui Province.

Other problematic milk products were found only a year later.

One widely reprinted report quoted an unnamed "industry insider" as saying that recycling expired milk is the norm in the domestic dairy industry, and that more than 90 per cent of fresh milk has already been contaminated before entering processing procedures.

"All this has affected public confidence and will harm a growing but fragile industry," said Chen Yu, an analyst from Beijing Orient Agri Business Consultancy.

The industry had been developing at a double-digit growth between 1998 and 2003, but growth was only 1.2 per cent last year.

Dairy companies should learn from the scandals, strengthening self-discipline and ensuring the quality and safety of products to give a healthy and sustainable development, he said.

Bright Dairy's problems are down to faulty management during its rapid expansion through mergers and acquisitions, he said.

The company bought the Zhengzhou Shanmeng Dairy in December 2003, but did not strictly manage and inspect the factory.

"Many dairy companies will face such problems as they grow quickly," Chen said.

China now has more than 1,600 dairy firms, and 90 to 95 per cent are small or medium-sized companies.

A round of mergers and acquisitions is expected in industry restructuring.

Daily testing must also be reinforced during production process, Chen said.

"To be honest, Nestle's test standard is much stricter than any other Chinese dairy makers, while the feeding of cows by individual households increased test difficulties," he said. 

(China Daily)

netizen : 網民

reprocessing: 回收處理，再加工

restructuring : 更改結構，重新調整，改革