Where are the root causes of frequent safety incidents of milk powder?

Something happened to the milk powder again! Following the announcement of the fake Abbott and Beinmei milk powder incident in March this year, the Shanghai Food and Drug Administration announced another major food safety incident a few days ago: the suspect Liu, through the Shanghai Jiawai International Trading Co., Ltd., sold 276 tons of New Zealand-made Fonterra baking dairy products out of stock to all parts of the country.

At present, the relevant departments have seized 109.2 tons of the products involved, but the whereabouts of 166.8 tons of expired products are still unknown. After verification, in order to reduce the loss of expired New Zealand baking dairy products, Liu, the former person in charge of Shanghai Jiawai, sold 276 tons of New Zealand baking dairy products expired in stock to a number of companies and downstream distributors such as Jiangsu, Henan and Qinghai through Nantong Huayuan Feed Co., Ltd., and sold to wholesale and online stores.

It is worth noting that the controlling shareholder of Shanghai Jiawai is the industrial investment platform invested by New Hope Group. In addition, Xi Gang, president of grassroots Zhiben and president of New Hope Dairy, is also one of its individual shareholders. However, after the accident, all parties came out one after another to put aside their responsibilities. However, although the grassroots knowledge and New Hope Dairy have repeatedly stressed that the illegal sale of expired dairy products is Liu's personal behavior, as an investor and controlling shareholder, there is no effective supervision over the company and its individuals. this is indeed the unshirkable responsibility of the grassroots knowledge and the New Hope Group. This view has been expressed by many people in the industry.

At a time when all parties blame, consumers are worried about those 166.8 tons of expired products whose whereabouts are unknown. These expired products are sold all over the country by wholesale and online stores, posing a threat to consumers' health and once again hurting consumers' confidence in the dairy industry.

In fact, since the Sanlu milk powder incident in September 2008, the issue of milk powder safety has never been far from public view. The quality and safety problems of infant milk powder, once considered the safest for children, have been exposed for years. After the Sanlu incident, Chinese people's confidence in domestic milk powder fell into a low ebb, and many young parents turned their attention to overseas brands. However, foreign milk powder has also become the protagonist of safety incidents, almost all the mainstream foreign milk powder brands sold in the domestic market are not immune, have been more or less involved in quality issues.

However, compared with foreign milk powder, domestic milk powder has been hurt more because of quality problems, resulting in a decline in consumer trust in domestic milk powder, and this trend shows no sign of stopping, gradually spreading from big cities to second-and third-tier cities, and there is no possibility of turning things around so quickly. The boss of a domestic milk powder enterprise witnessed the "golden decade" of domestic milk powder, and also witnessed the embarrassment of domestic milk powder falling into mistrust. He once lamented to me: the quality of national brand milk powder has reached the world class. I have the strength to compete with foreign milk powder, but it is too difficult to restore consumer confidence!

At present, the domestic market capacity of infant milk powder is about 80 billion yuan, which is expected to reach 100 billion yuan within five years. With the implementation of the milk powder formula registration system, small brands begin to withdraw gradually in the second half of the year, "fake foreign devils" will also disappear, and these brands will vacate a large portion of the market share. If domestic milk powder wants to get these market shares, there is an urgent need to restore consumer confidence.

However, the efforts of domestic milk powder to restore consumer confidence have been hindered by repeated safety incidents. The frequent occurrence of safety problems in the milk powder industry is largely due to the shortcomings and loopholes in food safety supervision. A commentator's article published by People's Daily hit the nail on the head and pointed out the problem: confidence is not "emphasized". It is set up by genuine brands, a set of effective regulatory system, and an open and transparent governance process.

The "strictest supervision" of infant milk powder requires the concerted efforts of regulatory departments, enterprises and the public. Regulators need to hang the "sword of Damocles" to protect consumers with unforgiving action and a more transparent mechanism; milk powder enterprises should do a good job in quality control and produce good milk powder; when consumers find problematic milk powder, they should actively report to the regulatory authorities.