Comments on: Eat Your Fruits So You Don’t Get “Backed Up”, But Make Sure It’s Not Counterfeit!

By: Matthew Neal

Matthew Neal — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 23:55:33 +0000

This is a very interesting issue. The crazy thing is that although we pride ourselves on the quality of food in the US, yet there have been large breakouts of salmonella on our products in the grocery stores. While we still have much higher standards than other countries it is amazing to me the amount of stuff that sneaks through the cracks. The most disturbing thing is that in the case of the recent peanut butter scare, the supplier had know for years that there were problems with the supply.

This issue also makes me think of the statistic in “The Elephant and the Dragon” that states that “the United States alone could feed all of China’s 1.3 billion people and still have California, Texas, Nebraska, and Oklahoma to spare” Probably one of the most amazing statistics I have heard about American agriculture. China and India have a long ways to go to catch up to the efficiency and cleanliness standards of American agriculture.

By: Ashley Breneman

Ashley Breneman — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 06:24:00 +0000

Okay apparently I’m not really sure how to add a hyperlink to my comment…does anyone know how I can add one in?

By: Ashley Breneman

Ashley Breneman — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 06:21:15 +0000

Hair in soy sauce????? I agree with Jessica that anytime I find hair in my dinner it gets a lot harder for me to eat it. I almost didn’t believe that people would really use hair in soy sauce so I decided to do a little research. I found the following news update referring to the incident .

For those of you who don’t check out the article, it goes into more depth on why the issue is even more unsanitary. The hair being used in the manufacturing of this amino acid syrup and powder comes from hair salons and hospitals around the country. In these hospitals, the hair was also combined with condoms, hospital cottons, menstrual cycle pads, and syringes. If you weren’t disgusted by the hair alone, I guarantee that fact got you.

With regards to food in general, I plan on being very careful where I eat in both China and India. I know Professor Carr said that many of us will get sick for a variety of reasons including food poisoning and just not being used to the food. I definitely plan on brining as much medicine as possible to try and prevent this from happening and just hope that none of these unsanitary ingredients happen to land in my stomach!

By: David Caldwell

David Caldwell — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 21:47:40 +0000

It seems like one of the primary concerns in bringing production to China is the quality issue. Many companies concerned with this issue have taken it upon themselves to self regulate to keep up appearances with the consumers they’re selling to in more developed areas - this holds true even more when the products coming from overseas go into your body, rather than lighting up your desk.

Referring to the China Law Blog, Steve Dickinson is quoted in saying that the Chinese food safety “law includes no standards, no timeline, no budget, no procedure for obtaining the input of regulated parties and no clear way to resolve disputes.” Without any teeth, it’s unlikely to create the same level of consumer protection that the FDA and USDA provide…at least for a while.

By: Amy Cook

Amy Cook — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 02:03:37 +0000

A little over a year or so ago when I was working at a vitamin/supplement company several pet owners in the U.S. had their dogs and/or cats die after eating pet food sold in the U.S. but originating in China. Suddenly we were getting dozens of calls every day from customers and store owners asking if our products were made in China or contained any ingredients from China. We were self-manufactured and very stringent on quality control, but there was a small amount of one ingredient which we had been purchasing from China. We had several small stores pull our product off their shelves and we fielded many angry phone calls, especially since we had products intended for children. Our VP of Operations and Materials Manager immediately went to work trying to find another source for the ingredient. I’m not sure whether they found a new supplier we could afford before the calls stopped and the hysteria subsided, but the whole situation was fairly short-lived.

Even if we didn’t find a new supplier though, I’m sure many pet food manufacturers had to find alternatives to China and I am sure this rolled over into other industries as well. Why wouldn’t a fear of losing major business deter Chinese manufacturers from creating dangerous or contaminated products? It seems like quite the gamble.

U.S. companies who manufacture in China need to be aware that (unfortunately) China does not yet have the safety standards that we enjoy here in the U.S. and they should be aware of the possible implications of that fact especially if they manufacture products that people (or pets) are going to ingest. These companies need to take responsibility for their product even if it was not manufactured at home.

Tort law (AKA: the fear that someone will sue your butt for negligence) keeps a lot of businesses honest. Hopefully China will someday have this “check” in place and will avoid many of these problems. Like the further development of copyright and patent law, this will make it much easier to do business with China.

By: Chris Carr

Chris Carr — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 04:58:26 +0000

This China Law Blog post, China Food Safety: Executions Aren’t Working So Let’s Try New Standards may answer a portion of your question. Check out the submitted comments to the post as well.

But here is the down side: it proposes a solution that I would support — let people sue the living beejessus out of the firms and business people that do this, as civil monetary tort damages can be a great way to change bad boy behavior.

However, lawyers like me, Dan Harris and Steve Dickinson (be sure to read his cited WSJ op-ed piece) are not popular with the MBA crowd and business when we suggest remedies such as this …

Back to your question, remember, China is just starting to learn to walk on issues like this. Will be a decade or two or three, at least, before they can gallop. Then this will all get really exciting and could be game on.