Carrefour SA, Europe’s biggest retailer, said its dairy sales in China fell by 50 percent after government tests showed chemical tainting of milk products.
Sales started to recover in the past week and may be back to normal in about a month, said Eric Legros, Carrefour’s managing director for China. Dairy products account for about 1 percent of the Paris-based company’s total revenue in China.
“The most important thing we need now is to be rational because without being rational you have panic and panic is no good for anyone,” Legros said in an interview yesterday at a regional development conference in the western city of Chongquing.
PHOTO: AP
China pulled more than 7,000 tonnes of dairy products from shops after they were found to be laced with melamine, typically used to make plastics and tan leather. Twenty-two dairy producers were found to have used the chemical that has caused kidney stones in babies. Tainted milk formula killed four infants and sickened 53,000 in China.
“I think it’s important that we explain to consumers that there’s nothing wrong with milk,” Legros said. “It’s only that some processors added bad stuff to the milk.”
The contaminated products were first found in baby milk powder produced by Sanlu Group (三鹿), 43 percent-owned by New Zealand’s Fonterra Cooperative Group.
Carrefour spokesman Chen Bo (陳波) said the chain had pulled Sanlu milk powder off its shelves, Xinhua reported on Sept. 12.
The French company, which has 120 stores in China, supplies fruits from China to Europe, while it doesn’t ship milk or dairy products, Legros said.
H.J. Heinz Co, the world’s largest ketchup maker, said on Friday it would recall 270 cases of baby food in Hong Kong after finding traces of melamine. Seven instant coffee and milk tea products made in China are being recalled in the US, the first announced by the US Food and Drug Administration.
Chinese authorities have pulled more than 7,000 tonnes of milk powder, liquid milk and other dairy products that were contaminated.
China’s agricultural ministry said yesterday that inspectors have begun cracking down on lax production methods in 16 dairy and feed-producing regions.
The eight inspection teams are part of efforts to overhaul the US$20 billion dairy industry, focusing on weeding out problems, establishing quality standards and enforcing supervision, the ministry said in a statement.
China, the world’s biggest agricultural producer, is trying to quell rising concern about its food-safety controls after 22 companies were found to have sold dairy products tainted with melamine. More than 20 countries and markets have banned milk products from China.
“It’s an important task for us to revive consumers’ confidence in China-made dairy products,” Commerce Minister Chen Deming (陳德銘)said yesterday on the ministry’s Web site. “We need to achieve this through effective supervision and adopt better quality standards and product testing.”
Deputy agricultural ministers and senior economists are leading the overhaul work in Beijing, Henan, Inner Mongolia, Liaoning, Hebei, Xinjiang and Heilongjiang, the statement said.
“The bottom-line task is to take forceful measures to ensure all diary products made after Sept. 14 are problem-free,” Wang Yong (王勇), China’s chief quality supervisor, said in a statement yesterday.
The General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine agency has said no contamination was found in milk products made after Sept. 14.
Chinese scientists have developed a chemical substance enabling cheaper and faster testing for melamine, the Xinhua news agency said Saturday. The reagent can detect melamine in 20 minutes at a cost of 20 yuan (US$2.90), compared with liquid chromatography methods which take a week and cost 2,000 yuan, the report said.
Cairo’s new monorail slices across the city skyline, running above the familiar chaos of blaring horns and aging buses’ exhaust fumes that mark rush hour below. The US$4.5 billion monorail, opened this month, is among Egypt’s most prominent new transport projects, part of a debt-funded infrastructure drive criticized for sapping state finances while bringing limited benefits to most of the country’s 109 million people. “It feels like you’re in a different country,” said Ramy Sayed, a restaurant manager, aboard a driverless Innovia 300 train. “No noise, no traffic, we’re not used to this.” The eastern line runs 56km from the bustling middle-class
Taiwanese firms have increased investment in the Philippines in recent years as Manila’s ties with Washington deepen and global supply chains continue to shift away from China, an expert at the Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER, 中華經濟研究院) said yesterday. The Philippines had not been among Taiwanese investors’ top choices in Southeast Asia, CIER Taiwan ASEAN Studies Center director Kristy Hsu (徐遵慈) said at a seminar in Taipei. However, Taiwan’s investment in the country has grown significantly since the COVID-19 pandemic, reaching US $257 million last year, a high in recent years, she said. Although Taiwan’s total investment in the Philippines still lags
Starlux Airlines Co (星宇航空) today unveiled a long-haul network expansion plan at a shareholders’ meeting in Taipei, including direct flights to Barcelona, Spain, and Zurich, Switzerland, as well as a service connecting Taipei, Sydney and New Zealand. Starlux is to become the first Taiwanese carrier to offer non-stop services to the two European cities, while the inaugural oceanic route is expected to expand transit opportunities within the Australia-New Zealand market, Starlux said. Flight services to Chicago, Dallas, Washington and New York are under evaluation, the airline added. Prior to the shareholders’ meeting, the airline earlier this year announced that it would be
Intel Corp regards Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) as a longstanding partner, as the US chipmaker would continue outsourcing production of advanced chips to TSMC, Intel chief executive officer Lip-Bu Tan (陳立武) said yesterday. “I don’t look at people as competitors. I look at the collaboration... Nvidia is also, you know, a good friend,” Tan told a news conference following his keynote speech at the Computex trade show in Taipei. “It’s a very trusted partnership for us... We are a big, top customer for them, and we’re going to continue doing that,” he said, referring to TSMC, the world’s largest foundry
RSS