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Take Out with Bob Weeks

Bob Weeks began his publishing career in the early 1970's and served in several different capacities with Bill Communications and Freed Crown Lee Publishing before becoming Publisher of Dairy Foods and Prepared Foods magazines at Gorman Publishing. In 1991 he set out on his own, establishing Weeks Publishing Company with the successful launch of Food Product Design Magazine which subsequently became and remains today the preeminent food development and R&D focused publication/information source. Bob continued as Publisher of Food Product Design as well as Culinology magazine after being acquired by Phoenix-based Virgo Publishing LLC. in 2005. His 23 years in food publishing have established Bob as one of the foremost thought leaders in the food industry.

Will They Ever Learn?

January 26, 2010 Comments

Posted in Blog, Topics, Baby Foods, Children, Dairy, Food Safety, Dairy Ingredients

In 2008, the Chinese food industry was rocked by a scandal involving the adulteration of a variety of dairy-related products with the industrial compound melamine. Melamine is used in plastics and fertilizer due to its very high nitrogen levels, but in 2008 it was used by certain Chinese dairy manufacturers because it makes certain dairy products appear to be more protein-rich in standard nutrition tests. While that allowed those companies to get top dollar for their products, it caused kidney stones and kidney failure, especially in infants and toddlers.

In the end, the scandal sickened more than 300,000 people, among them were six children who died. Additionally, it bankrupted Sanlu, China’s largest dairy company, caused worldwide recalls of products that used the tainted dairy ingredients, and did tremendous damage to the credibility of the Chinese dairy industry. It also resulted in the execution of two top-level Chinese food-industry executives who were implicated.

You would think that after all the above had occurred, everyone in the Chinese dairy industry would be on notice and be doubly cautious … but no. Last month it was announced by the Shanghai government that they closed down the Shanghai Panda Dairy Company and arrested three of its top executives after discovering that batches of melamine-containing products produced in 2008 were being distributed. What makes this even worse is that the government knew about it in 2008 but took no action. To top things off, late last month in Shannxi Province, the authorities arrested three dairy executives after discovering 200 bags of dairy powder laced with melamine.

Will they ever learn?