It is sad that one of the biggest news in post Beijing Olympic time is the milk contamination which results in the recalls of thousands of tons of formula milk powder and a long list of dairy products.

I remembered the day when our national TV broadcast station CCTV 1 reported the news that Sanlu brand formula power had caused a baby’s death; my mother was watching it in the living room. She rushed to my room and said: “You must think a way to buy some imported formula power for your baby in the future.” It is not the first time we hear about milk “kills” babies in China. But I believe that buying products (especially food) with”Made-in-China”label is no longer a symbol of patriotic deed in many Chinese minds after this time. These domestic made products have really disappointed us. We don’t know when to trust a brand, an advertisement or even simply price – the more expensive, the higher quality?

The government has done a much better job than before in this milk crisis. I have thought this crisis would have crashed the company SanLu within a few days, but the government walked one step forward to consulate angry and panic parents and consumers by providing free medical check for all the babies in the whole country and disclosing the quality inspection results of dairy products. You can easily find the report in the supermarkets. But still, the harm to the confidence of Chinese products will not recover easily in both domestic and international market.

However, I have read some interesting number: a store manager in Carefour Shanghai told a reporter that the sales of the domestic brand milk power only accounted for 2% of the total sales of milk power products in that store. This number implies that it is relative small number of consumers buying domestic baby milk powder in Shanghai.  Apparently, they can afford imported or at least joint-ventured products. But millions babies in the inner China are not as lucky. Parents have to buy the milk power at price as cheap as 18 RMB (2.6 USD) /bag (400g), and selling low-end products is how Sanlu took the market share in inner China area. Whom to blame?

Netizens in China can’t hold up their anger and here is an examples how they express themselves:

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The characters on the can: Baby Stone Milk Power; the big characters on the bottom of the images: A Cup of Milk Every Day, A Generation of Stone.

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