Can 7 years of 100% compliance for raw milk win over consumers?

The latest data from the China Dairy Industry Association is embarrassing——China's milk output currently ranks third in the world, yet imports account for nearly one third of China's total dairy consumption. Agriculture Minister Han Changfu said on August 18 that the Ministry of Agriculture has implemented a raw milk quality monitoring plan for 7 consecutive years, that the pass rate for spot checks on prohibited additives such as melamine has remained at 100%, and that the milk protein and milk fat content of raw milk from large-scale pastures is substantially higher than the national standard. (Beijing Morning Post, August 19)

After the melamine incident broke out, although industry regulation and standards have become increasingly complete and the quality of domestic milk has improved greatly, imports still account for nearly one third of China's total dairy consumption, and some consumers have made it clear that “domestic milk makes people uneasy.” Since the quality of domestic milk has already improved greatly, why can it still not reassure some consumers, and why is it still hard to regain its former market share? The relevant parties still need to reflect on this.

“For 7 years, raw milk has passed 100% of tests for melamine and other substances” - this is indeed remarkable progress, but the change in the quality of domestic milk is still not recognized by many consumers. One important reason is that the melamine incident back then “hurt” consumers too deeply, and restoring consumer confidence in domestic milk requires a long and tortuous process. Nowadays, many families have only one child and cannot afford the harm of “problem milk,” so they would rather pay a high price to buy “foreign milk powder.” Of course, it cannot be ruled out that some consumers “worship foreign things and fawn on foreign powers,” which also makes the road to recovery for domestic milk unusually bumpy. In addition to the above reasons, there are actually deeper reasons why consumers are not reassured by domestic milk, such as the fact that the quality of the domestic milk product series has not fully achieved 100% compliance, which makes consumers worry.

“Raw milk has passed 100% of tests for 7 years” does not mean that all domestic dairy products sold on the market are 100% compliant in quality. According to the definition in the Measures for the Administration of Raw Milk Production and Purchase, raw milk refers to unprocessed raw milk from dairy livestock, and turning it into various dairy consumer products requires production, processing, transportation and other processes. Therefore, whether the quality of various domestic dairy products in the terminal market is 100% compliant is what consumers care about most.

⟦NL> Even if the quality of all domestic dairy products produced by legitimate domestic manufacturers is compliant, consumers will still worry that fake and shoddy dairy products will harm them, because fake and shoddy dairy products have not disappeared from around us. Moreover, dairy products produced by certain legitimate manufacturers occasionally have problems as well. For example, Bright Dairy, an old-established Shanghai dairy company, was exposed for quality problems 6 times within 5 months in 2012. Because consumers generally do not drink raw milk directly, “7 years 100%” is very difficult to use to win over consumers.

More importantly, because food safety incidents occur frequently in China, it is easy for consumers to form negative associations. For example, food safety incidents such as toxic bean sprouts easily make consumers wonder: do other foods also have quality problems? Therefore, if consumers are to be reassured about domestic milk, the broader food consumption environment must be improved and the overall quality level of domestic food must be raised. Although the “strictest ever” new Food Safety Law is about to be implemented, given the complex food safety situation, the public still finds it hard to be optimistic for the time being.

China's imported milk powder surged from 140,000 tons in 2008 to 1.05 million tons in 2014, an increase of more than 6 times in 6 years. This means that the “domestic milk powder is ‘the best in history’” claimed in past reports and the “domestic milk powder standards are the strictest in the world” stated by relevant industry associations have in fact not ultimately changed consumers' views of domestic milk powder. Therefore, getting consumers to once again accept domestic milk powder remains a heavy responsibility with a long way to go, and the relevant parties must be prepared to continue fighting a “protracted war.”