New Zealand milk scare pinches Chinese consumers

BEIJING - Chinese consumers are expressing concerns about the safety of New Zealand's dairy products since its government officials disclosed on Thursday that a toxic substance has been found.

New Zealand's Ministry of Primary Industries claimed that "very low levels" of Dicyandiamide (DCD), which has been found by dairy giant Fonterra Cooperative Group in a random sampling last September, does not pose a food safety risk to consumers.

Although there is no internationally set ceiling for DCD residues in food, high doses of the substance are considered toxic to humans.

" 'Very low levels' means 100 times lower than safety limits established by the European Commission," Kelvin Wickham, president of Fonterra Greater China and India, said Saturday in an interview with Xinhua via email.

He offered no further details by saying that the New Zealand government concluded their products are safe to consume, and "not any residues (were) found in infant formula."

But Chinese consumers are still not assured if "very low levels" could be harmful.

Internet user "YiyiMMqiong" said at China's Twitter-like service Sina Weibo that she had been feeding her baby with a New Zealand brand infant formula for a long time.

"I'm very upset now. Is it contaminated by DCD?" asked "YiyiMMqiong".

She is not alone. Many people called on the authorities to clarify which products had been contaminated and whether those had been imported to China.

New Zealand dairy products account for nearly 80 percent and 40 percent in China's import market and infant food respectively, Song Liang, a dairy analyst of the Distribution Productivity Promotion Center of China Commerce, told a Beijing-based newspaper on Friday.

Since a 2008 scandal, in which milk was laced with an industrial chemical melamine, led to the deaths of at least six babies and sickened 300,000 others, dairy products from New Zealand, Europe and Australia have been hotly pursued by consumers on the Chinese mainland.