The president of a major mainland dairy products manufacturer has attacked China's raw milk standards, saying they are among the lowest in the world.
'Our raw milk standards are almost the world's lowest,' Bright Dairy president Guo Benheng told a forum on Sunday. The mainland's standard for the protein content of raw milk is much lower than in the United States and European Union and it also tolerates higher levels of bacteria.
'International standards for the dairy industry also require checks for antibiotics and nitrites in raw milk, but China does not even make such requirements,' Guo said. 'Can we make a very high-end product with a relatively lower standard? In fact we cannot. What is produced from garbage is garbage.'
China's milk processing technologies were among the world's best, Guo said, but the problem lies in the low quality of raw milk. He said the priority should now be improving its quality.
Guo's comments have given fresh impetus to the controversy, first raised by Guangzhou dairy industry official Wang Dingmian , who described China's dairy standards as the loosest in the world when they came into effect in June last year. Widespread media coverage of similar remarks by Wang at a dairy industry forum three weeks ago rekindled the debate.
The recent controversy over raw milk standards has further eroded consumers' already low confidence in the mainland's dairy industry, after 22 dairy companies, including some major producers, were involved in the fatal melamine-tainted milk scandal three years ago.
In January, authorities ordered dairy product manufacturers to obtain new production certificates this year, and said those unable to guarantee product quality would be shut down. By the end of March, only 643 dairy firms out of a total of 1,176 companies had passed inspection.