Food From China Not Worth The Risk
Posted on May 21, 2007 by webteam
For years, Wal-Mart has been pressuring companies to make their products cheaper and cheaper. For many companies, this has meant outsourcing production to countries overseas, most notably China. Now, after massive food recalls, Tyson, Mission and Menu Foods have made a commitment to shift sourcing for food production away from China. While price pressures from Bentonville make production in China an alluring option, the fear of multi-billion dollar class action lawsuits may be even more powerful. Though national food safety regulation has been substantially weakened under the Bush Administration, class action lawsuits remain a powerful tool for those advocating consumer protections, and the threat of class action encourages companies to adopt practices that protect consumers. Although choosing costlier, domestic suppliers might damage a company’s ties with Bentonville, class action lawsuits (the kind that result from poor quality food) can be much more damaging. With major players Tyson and Mission out of China, many smaller producers are sure to follow. Any food manufacturer that sources from China becomes a target for future lawsuits by taking on the increased risk from Chinese sourcing.
While this does not necessarily mean increased domestic food production, it will probably mean companies will obtain food ingridients where food safety can be monitored more closely and where higher regulatory standards exist.
Tainted Chinese Imports Common [Washington Post]
For years, U.S. inspection records show, China has flooded the United States with foods unfit for human consumption. And for years, FDA inspectors have simply returned to Chinese importers the small portion of those products they caught—many of which turned up at U.S. borders again, making a second or third attempt at entry.
Now the confluence of two events—the highly publicized contamination of U.S. chicken, pork and fish with tainted Chinese pet food ingredients and this week’s resumption of high-level economic and trade talks with China—has activists and members of Congress demanding that the United States tell China it is fed up.
Chinese imports nixed by key firm [USA Today]
Menu Foods, North America’s biggest maker of wet pet foods and the company that launched the pet food recall, is phasing out ingredients from China.
It won’t resume using them until Menu and the “world community” are assured that they are safe, says Menu’s outside counsel, David Lillehaug of Fredrikson & Byron.Menu, which makes pet foods for dozens of brands, recalled hundreds of products in mid-March after reports of kidney failure in pets. An ingredient imported from China was later found to be contaminated with melamine and melamine byproducts that are not allowed in foods.
The recall has increased concerns over the safety of imported foods, especially from China, and food companies of all kinds have or are evaluating their global sourcing procedures.
“All of our customers are asking, ‘Where are the ingredients coming from?’ “ says Victor Barsky, of the New York-based Chenango Valley Pet Foods, which makes dry pet food for 35 companies. It, too, is dropping China-made ingredients, Barsky says.
Continued at USA Today >>
China’s additives on menu in U.S. [Los Angeles Times]
As the recall of tainted pet food mushroomed into an international scandal, two of the largest U.S. food manufacturers put out a blanket order to their American suppliers: No more ingredients from China.
The directive from Mission Foods Corp. and Tyson Foods Inc., made quietly this month, underscored consumers’ and manufacturers’ fears about the safety of imported food ingredients after contaminated wheat products from China killed and sickened cats and dogs in the United States.
The problem is, what Mission and Tyson want is next to impossible.
In the last decade, China has become the world’s leading supplier of many food flavorings, vitamins and preservatives. Like fingernail clippers, playing cards, Christmas ornaments and other items, some food additives are available in vast quantities only from China.
