8 years on, can Chinese dairy products put consumers at ease?
"A cup of milk makes a nation strong." Dairy products bear on people's health and the future of the nation. After the 2008 melamine incident, the domestic dairy industry suffered a heavy blow, and consumers' confidence in domestic dairy products sank to a low point.
Eight years have passed. Has the Chinese dairy industry, having learned from its bitter experience and endured hardships to strengthen itself, already been "reborn"? Can the quality of domestic dairy products withstand the test? On August 16, the Dairy Association of China released China's first dairy quality report, comprehensively responding to hot issues in the dairy industry.
Over the past 8 years, the dairy industry has been comprehensively rectified and revitalized, and a sound dairy quality testing system has been established.
Milk is hailed as the "most nearly perfect food" that nature has given to humankind, and the dairy industry is also the most dynamic and promising sector of China's livestock farming. The 2008 melamine incident was undoubtedly a heavy blow to China's dairy industry.
"Since 2008, China's dairy industry has learned from its bitter experience and set sail again. Government departments have vigorously tightened quality and safety rectification, and enterprises and associations have moved quickly to raise the industry's production and management level. After 8 years of effort, the domestic dairy industry has gradually emerged from its low point, and the revitalization of the dairy industry now has a solid foundation," said Gu Jicheng, vice president and secretary-general of the Dairy Association of China.
It is understood that over the past 8 years, the rectification and revitalization of China's dairy industry has mainly started from three links:
In the dairy cattle farming link, support for the dairy industry has been continuously increased, and a series of policies and measures have been implemented, such as subsidies for improved dairy cattle breeds, standardized large-scale farming, and the action to revitalize the dairy industry through alfalfa development, steadily raising the level of scale, standardization, mechanization and organization in dairy cattle farming. In 2015, the share of large-scale farming with more than 100 dairy cattle on hand reached 48.3%, 28.8 percentage points higher than in 2008, and 100% of large-scale farms achieved mechanized milking; there were more than 15,000 dairy farmer professional cooperatives, more than 7 times the number in 2008.
In the purchasing and transport links, a comprehensive clean-up and rectification of milk collection stations was carried out, access management was strictly enforced, and substandard milk collection stations were resolutely banned. The number of milk collection stations fell from more than 20,000 in 2008 to 8,500, and the infrastructure, machinery and equipment, testing methods and personnel quality of milk collection stations improved significantly. All raw milk transport vehicles now use dedicated vehicles and hold certificates for transport.
In the dairy processing link, the production licenses of dairy product and infant formula enterprises were re-examined, a number of enterprises with no guaranteed milk source and backward production technology were eliminated, and the merger and reorganization of infant formula enterprises was vigorously promoted, optimizing the industrial structure and effectively safeguarding dairy quality and safety.
"After 2008, we learned profound lessons and established a relatively sound dairy quality and safety testing system." Wang Jiaqi, director of the Center for Quality Supervision, Inspection and Testing of Milk and Dairy Products (Beijing) of the Ministry of Agriculture and a researcher at the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, said that at present China's testing of dairy products covers four major categories of indicators, namely nutritional indicators, hygiene indicators, health indicators and pollutant residue indicators, which can promptly and accurately grasp the quality dynamics of dairy products and effectively provide early warning and prevention against quality and safety problems.
Dairy quality and safety have improved substantially; the pass rate for melamine spot checks has remained 100% for 7 consecutive years.
In 2015, China's total milk output reached 38.7 million tons, ranking third in the world, after only India and the United States. What about the quality and safety of these milk products?
According to this quality report, since 2009 the Ministry of Agriculture has implemented a raw milk quality and safety monitoring plan, focusing on raw milk collection stations and transport vehicles. The testing indicators include 10 items such as milk protein, milk fat, total bacterial count, aflatoxin M1, somatic cell count, lead, chromium, mercury, melamine and leather hydrolysate, with a cumulative 151,000 raw milk samples spot-checked.
Among these indicators, milk protein and milk fat are the main indicators for measuring the nutritional value of raw milk; total bacterial count, aflatoxin M1 and somatic cell count are the main indicators reflecting the hygiene status of raw milk; lead, chromium and mercury are the main indicators for judging whether raw milk is contaminated by heavy metals; and melamine and leather hydrolysate are indicators for judging whether prohibited substances have been artificially added to raw milk.
The spot-check results show that the average values of the two major nutritional components, milk protein and milk fat, in raw milk were both higher than the national standards and also higher than U.S. standards. The monitored average values of total bacterial count, aflatoxin M1, somatic cell count, lead, chromium and mercury were far below China's limit standards, indicating that the dairy cattle farming environment and the health status of dairy cattle have improved significantly. The pass rate for testing of prohibited additives such as melamine has remained 100% for 7 consecutive years.
"At present, domestic dairy production and dairy quality and safety are in the best period in history. The pass rate for dairy product spot checks is far higher than the pass rate for spot checks of other foods in China. It can be said that dairy products have become one of the safest foods in China," Wang Jiaqi said.
In response to the public's concern about antibiotic residues in raw milk, Wang Jiaqi said that China, like other countries around the world, has formulated strict standards for antibiotic residues. Dairy cattle must have a withdrawal period when using antibiotics, and milk produced during that period cannot be sold or used. "The spot-check results from 2013 to 2015 show that no use of prohibited antibiotic drugs or excessive antibiotics was found."
Chinese dairy products win recognition; some dairy enterprises go overseas
In recent years, Chinese people have been keen on buying foreign dairy products through purchasing agents and snapping them up. This reflects both distrust of domestic dairy products and a "worship" of the quality of foreign dairy products. So, are imported dairy products necessarily better than domestic ones?
According to the report, in 2015 the Laboratory of Dairy Product Quality and Safety Risk Assessment (Beijing) of the Ministry of Agriculture monitored liquid milk products such as pasteurized milk, ultra-high-temperature sterilized milk and modified milk sold in 23 large cities in China. The results showed that compared with imported liquid milk, domestic liquid milk showed no significant differences in risk factors such as aflatoxin M1, veterinary drug residues and heavy metal lead, and all met China's limit standards, while the content of furosine, a by-product of the heat processing of milk, in imported sterilized milk samples was higher than in domestic sterilized milk.
Li Shengli, chief scientist of the National Dairy Cattle Industry Technology System and a professor at China Agricultural University, believes that the production equipment and processing technology of China's major dairy enterprises mostly come from internationally renowned manufacturers, and their management and operations have reached the international advanced level. Among them, Yili and Mengniu have entered the world's top 20 dairy companies; Junlebao's infant formula has passed the internationally recognized Global Food Safety Standard (BRC) A+ top-level certification, and its infant formula, after strict testing and review in Hong Kong, China, has entered the Hong Kong, China market; Modern Farming and Feihe Dairy also won gold awards at the Monde Selection. These dairy products going global are a high affirmation of China's dairy industry.
"At the current stage, there are still some sticking points and problems in the development of China's dairy industry, and its competitiveness is still insufficient compared with developed countries, but we are confident that through eight to ten years of unremitting efforts, we will achieve the revitalization of the national dairy industry," Gu Jicheng said.