Speaking at an international food safety conference in Beijing, experts from Europe, the US and China agreed that the booming economy needed to bolster supervision of its food industry and step up law enforcement.
But companies also need to follow ‘basic business ethics’, said Weiming Jiang, president of DSM China.
His comments came a day after China’s State Council revealed that Sanlu, the country’s biggest milk formula producer, had waited for several months before reporting problems with its product.
Four babies have died and almost 13,000 were hospitalised after drinking Sanlu formula contaminated with the industrial chemical melamine. Sanlu had received reports that babies were falling ill as far back as December 2007.
Transparency
“Social responsibility is important. It’s a hearts and minds issue, not only a regulation issue,” explained Jiang, adding that companies in China need to learn about transparency.
He said that DSM has developed a system of reporting for its suppliers. “On top of reporting income, companies should also report their responsibility. We get our suppliers to sign a contract with us to report on how they monitor food safety.”
Robert Madelin, director general of the European Commission’s DG Sanco, also pointed to the weakness in China’s reporting system. “The law must be strengthened, as we learned in Europe, to put positive obligations on operators to check safety, a strong obligation to record…and a legal obligation that economic operators tell food safety officials. You check, record and tell.”
Responsibility
More than 300 Chinese milk producers and retailers issued a joint statement yesterday promising to reject sub-standard raw materials, strictly inspect production, and take responsibility for product quality.
However, experts say it could be some time before the dairy industry regains consumer trust. Chinese food companies may also find it much tougher to enter export markets following the recent contaminated milk scandal.
Gary Locke, partner at US law firm Davis Wright Tremaine, said that there was already a slow down in demand for Chinese food imports following problems with Chinese products in 2007.
He added that consumers are increasingly checking the origins of their food.
“A US consumer can’t sue a farmer in China but it can go after the importer, distributor or retailer that sold them the Chinese-made food,” he told this journalist. “So supermarkets are going to be very, very wary of food from any country where they fear massive legal liability.”