Comments on: More on the Pet Food Controversy

By: Chris Carr

Chris Carr — Fri, 18 May 2007 16:01:24 +0000

Good comment, Mike.

What, in your org behavior course (how firms are structured and behave) and your econ courses (why do humans make the choices they do and what incentivizes that) shed light on why the US buyers did not check the quality of their raw material?

As a manager or CEO how would you prevent or tweak to prevent a re-occurrence?

In other words, I don’t see their failure to do so as surprising and this highlights how darn hard it is run a good company and a tight ship in business. Both an art and a science!

By: Mike Johannsen

Mike Johannsen — Fri, 18 May 2007 04:47:33 +0000

here is a follow up to the pet food incident in the NY Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/17/business/worldbusiness/17food.html?_r=2&adxnnl=1&oref=slogin&adxnnlx=1179396048-S3iEwuFhQTgKKmsCg5ew6g&oref=slogin
It appears that the Chinese government is charging that this is an isolated incident and are pursuing measures to protect against further cases of adulterated food. The question that follows is how does China put measures into place to protect the food supply and how long until they are in place? More growing pains.

The next place to look to place the blame is the US firms that are sourcing ingredients from overseas. If US firms are sourcing ingredients from countries with minimum regulations on food, why are the buyers not checking their raw materials. I am by no means letting the suppliers off the hook for inflating protein levels, but I am amazed that the US buyers did not check the quality of their raw material.

By: Chris Carr

Chris Carr — Thu, 10 May 2007 23:23:01 +0000

Good post.

It is amazing how the food system, for humans and now even pets, has become global in sourcing and how we are vulnerable to what goes on throughout the world.

By: Steven Rodger

Steven Rodger — Wed, 09 May 2007 21:18:14 +0000

It looks as if China may be realizing that unsafe food has severe consequences, as they have detained 2 of the managers who are potentially connected with the recent American pet deaths. Chinese pet food manufacturers claim that they were not aware of the damaging effects of melamine, and that they did not know that it was ‘against the rules’ to use it as an additive. Nevertheless, China is stepping up their inspections, but these inspections have not yet found any melamine traces. The US and Chinese seem to be working together to fix this problem. Meanwhile, there is a new concern in Asia about Formaldehyde which is being used to keep the foods of street vendors appearing fresh. While most of this food stays in Asian marketplaces, some ends up being exported to the United States. Toxic chemicals which act as preservatives, dyes and sweeteners are being used to make food appear fresh and delicious, when actually it may be a hazard to your health. How far will greed push people to make a buck? For example, industrial dyes are used by street vendors to make their products such as, sugar cane and coconut drinks glow. Other vendors use the same chemical dye Sudan Red to fed their ducks to make their egg yolk red, selling these eggs at a premium. This is great marketing idea, except for the fact that this chemical is linked to causing cancer. Unfortunately as well, some of these Asian made goods containing toxins are now making their way into the US. Being aware of such products is important as we travel to China. Perhaps we should seek adventure beyond our choice of foods and beverages.