China’s parents still mistrust country’s brands 10 years after lethal milk powder scandal
- Deaths of six infants after 300,000 were poisoned by chemical added by Chinese suppliers has fuelled ongoing consumer suspicion
- Using overseas milk has since been key to winning market share in China
More than a decade after tainted infant milk powder in China killed six children and exposed institutional neglect of food safety, Chinese parents still do not trust local companies to feed their babies.
That could mean another gold mine for foreign producers as the battle for infant milk shifts to the hundreds of smaller cities beyond the metropolises of Shanghai and Beijing.
The deadly milk scandal of 2008 was a watershed moment for China’s consumers. Some 300,000 children were poisoned after Chinese suppliers added melamine, a chemical used to make plastic, to powdered milk to artificially boost protein levels. Tuesday marks the 10th anniversary of the sentencing to death in China of those at the centre of the contamination and its concealment.
The scandal fuelled a new era of consumer suspicion and China’s US$27 billion infant-formula industry was reshaped to the near-exclusion of home-grown companies among the market leaders.
While Chinese government regulations on milk powder production are in line with international standards, consumers like Chen Jijie, a Beijing-based mother of two, will neither forgive nor forget.