Consumers can drink domestically produced fresh milk without worry after tests confirmed that local brands or raw milk collected from local dairy farms do not contain melamine, a Council of Agriculture (COA) official said on Monday.
Officials said the council had commissioned two nonprofit industry associations to determine whether any locally produced fresh or unpasteurized milk was tainted with melamine, the toxic chemical found to be prevalent in dairy ingredients from China.
The National Animal Industry Foundation and the Dairy Association tested 28 samples collected from 12 major producers of dairy products in Taiwan, and all the samples — 18 brands of fresh milk and 10 brands of unpasteurized milk — were free of melamine, council officials said.
The council said the 12 companies sampled account for more than 93 percent of all fresh milk sold domestically.
Testing on five samples collected from five smaller-scale fresh milk manufacturing companies is under way and results were expected today, the council said.
Concerns over melamine contamination in domestic products grew last week after it was learned that 22.7 tonnes of milk powder potentially containing melamine had been imported from China. The government has since barred Chinese dairy products.
Animal Industry Department Deputy Director Lee Chun-chin (李春進) said Taiwanese farmers would not need to cut costs by diluting their milk and adding melamine to get higher protein readings as had been done in China because the product’s hygiene and ingredients, rather than protein levels, are the key factors in determining its price.
“What we care about most are bacteria count, somatic cell count, fat ratio and solid particles in the raw milk rather than protein content,” Lee said.
“Paper cannot wrap up a fire. Any unscrupulous practice will be uncovered in the end. I don’t think our dairy farmers would be so stupid as to adopt unethical business practices,” he said.
Noting that the government has adopted a “cattle head” labeling system to certify hygiene and quality of locally produced fresh milk, Lee urged consumers to buy fresh milk carrying such certification labels.
BURST BUBBLES
Meanwhile, Taiwan’s beloved pearl tapioca milk tea (珍珠奶茶) industry has been badly hurt by the contamination scandal, vendors said yesterday. Shops selling the sweet drinks made from tea, milk and tapioca balls, have seen business drop by as much as 50 percent.
“Our business has been deeply affected since news of the milk powder contamination surfaced,” said an operator of a tea shop who declined to be named, adding that she usually sold more than 50 cups of milk tea a day, but now only sells about half that.
“People are panicking despite our efforts to reassure them that our creamers are not made in China,” she said.
Chen Cheng-liang, who owns a tea shop in Taoyuan County, said that her shop used creamer powder made in Southeast Asia or Australia. Although a 22.5kg bag of Chinese-made creamer costs between NT$1,700 and NT$1,800, slightly cheaper than the average NT$1,900 for similar products from other countries, Chen said she doesn’t use Chinese creamers because of their poor quality.
“The quality of creamers made in China is not acceptable, as some of them can hardly dissolve,” she said in a phone interview, adding that some street vendors could be using Chinese creamers.
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