Is imported cow's milk fresh milk or long-life milk? Read this to understand

Amid the consumer boycott of Ting Hsin and Wei Chuan foods, the fresh milk brand with the highest market share in the country, Wei Chuan Lin Feng Ying Fresh Milk, bore the brunt of the impact, but other brands of fresh milk faced the problem of booming demand coupled with insufficient milk supply. Some retailers began importing milk from abroad to meet consumer demand, but some of these imported milks have shelf lives ranging from 70 to 90 days, and even half a year to a year, yet the shelves still label them as "fresh milk." Consumers cannot help but ask, with a shelf life that long, can it still be called fresh milk?

Product name is long-life milk, yet it is placed in the refrigerated case labeled "whole milk"?

Chen Ming-ju, a professor in the Department of Animal Science and Technology at National Taiwan University and former convener of the Consumers' Foundation Food Committee, recently found that labeling problems in the dairy sales market are extremely chaotic, especially affected by the domestic milk shortage, with imported milk beginning to appear on shelves. But the shelf lives of these imported milks range from more than two months to a year, yet they are still called "fresh milk," challenging domestic consumers' perception of "freshness" as a shelf life of only 7 to 12 days for fresh milk, and raising the question of whether these imported milks should be called "fresh milk" or "long-life milk."

Fang Ching-chuan, secretary-general of the Republic of China Dairy Association, further found that some imported milks sold by retailers clearly belong to the long-life milk category, yet are deliberately placed alongside other domestic brands of fresh milk in refrigerated cases, using this deceptive method to confuse consumers' perceptions. When reporters actually visited several supermarkets and hypermarkets selling imported milk, they did indeed find milk imported from New Zealand, with the outer packaging reading fresh pure milk, the Chinese label reading "whole long-life pure milk," and a shelf life of up to 9 months, yet the refrigerated shelf label read "whole milk."