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Independent quality inspection tops agenda in dairy sector

By Nie Peng (chinadaily.com.cn)
Updated: 2008-10-10 22:31

Since mid-September, a quality inspector sent by local authorities has been coming to work on Chen Huiming's cow farm in Shanghai every day.

"They came immediately after the melamine scandal was exposed," said Chen. "(Their inspections) start with the arrival of the feed."

Authorities as well as dairy enterprises are working around the clock in a bid to restore consumer confidence that has slumped following the recent milk scandal.

An independent supervision system is now in the pipeline as the main problem was found to be lax quality controls in the course of raw milk purchase and storage.

Days ago, Li Yizhong, minister of industry and information said during a field survey that to date no dairy processing enterprises had been caught adding melamine into their products.

Whereas tests on Sanlu Group's 200 samples of raw milk showed 56 batches of dairy products contained the poisonous chemical, involving 41 raw milk collection stations.

In a move to solve the root problem, the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine (AQSIQ) has kicked off a nationwide hunt for food testing organizations that are capable of conducting melamine tests.

Li Wenlong, an official with the administration, told the 21st Century Business Herald that there are more than 20,000 testing organizations in the country, with 5,600 specialized in food testing.

The top quality watchdog has publicized 385 testing organizations that have the ability to do melamine tests and will add more qualified testers to the list to meet the need of the country's 1,800-plus dairy processing enterprises, Li said.

Li said the AQSIQ had followed strict rules to verify applicants' ability to carry out the melamine test, and therefore an optimistic estimate was that a maximum of 1,000 organizations would make the final list.

A report on testing organizations' qualifications is expected out on October 26, the newspaper said.

On Thursday China's Cabinet, the State Council, issued a series of quality control regulations for dairy products.

According to reports by China's official Xinhua News Agency, controls will be tightened on how milk-yielding animals are bred and how raw milk is purchased as well as on the production and sales of dairy food. Quality controllers will face more severe punishment for dereliction of duty together with violators of safety standards.

Zhao Yuanhua, vice president of Inner Mongolia-based Mengniu Dairy Group, said government quality supervision had mainly focused on dairy processing while quality tests on raw milk were conducted by dairy processors themselves.

In the past, a quality inspector sent by Mengniu would take charge of tests at several raw milk collection stations.

Now Mengniu has dispatched more than 8,000 of its staff to the country's milk collection stations to carry out around-the-clock monitoring on the quality of raw milk supplies, Zhao said.

"In addition, we have entrusted the Chinese Academy of Inspection and Quarantine to conduct independent tests on our products," she said.

Independent tests will not only ensure dairy products' quality, but also prevent enterprises from harming dairy farmers' interest through price squeezes, analysts said.

However, another problem needs to be solved before the independent inspection scheme can work toward those benefits.

"Many of the so-called third party testing organizations aren't really independent," said Zhang Junxiu, president of the Guangdong Food Industry Association.

He said testing organizations should separate from government organs and also have no conflicts of interest with dairy enterprises to ensure impartial results.

Guangdong is making revisions to relevant rules to make third party testing enterprises independent.

Zhang explained that in the past some evaluation organizations received bribes from enterprises being tested, which led to questionable testing results.

"We'll keep a close eye to prevent such things from happening. We'll let testing organizations know they'll have to pay ten-fold the price for ignoring the ban."

Contaminated baby milk powder has killed at least three infants in China and left more than 53,000 children suffering urinary tract problems, including kidney stones, according to Xinhua.

So far, 27 people have been arrested over the scandal, it said.