Formulating Food Safety Standards: Why Experts Say "Nothing"

According to the internal draft, the drafting unit of the Pasteur Milk formula was drafted by Mengniu Dairy Group. The raw milk standard was drafted by Yili Group and the yoghurt standard was drafted by the Guangming Group.”——Zeng Shouqi, China Dairy Association Dairy Products The deputy director of the industrial committee has participated in the seminar on the formulation of relevant dairy products four times.

“I haven’t understood yet, and repeatedly discussed and drafted the draft for review. What are some of the key criteria that will eventually be overturned?” – Wei Ronglu, Executive Vice President of the Western Dairy Association, participated in the seminar on the formulation of relevant dairy standards three times. .

"I don't have anything to say now." "What's the use?" - several dairy experts who participated in the standard-setting seminar.

This was expressed by several experts during an interview with a reporter from the People's Daily. According to the report on November 28th, after the melamine incident broke out, it became a consensus to reformulate the national standards for dairy safety. In December 2008, the Ministry of Health took the lead, together with the Ministry of Agriculture, the State Administration for Industry and Commerce, the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine, and other departments, to integrate and improve the national standards for dairy safety. What the experts called "critical standards", that is, the total number of colonies and proteins that the public has paid close attention to. Under the leadership of several dairy experts, a standard of no more than 500,000 raw milk per gram of raw milk and no less than 2.95 grams of protein per 100 grams of raw milk was agreed to form a final draft. However, in the program officially announced in March 2010, the colony was relaxed to 2 million and the protein was reduced to 2.8 grams. As to which part of the review draft was changed and why it was changed, Wei Ronglu and Zeng Shouyi said it was not clear. After the announcement of the new national standard for dairy products, it was bombarded by the media and the public: “China's dairy standards have created the world’s worst standards, and standard formulation has been abducted by large companies.”

The formulation of national food safety standards is somewhat mysterious to the people. I do not want the media to tear up this mystical veil for us - originally, the formulation of food safety standards, experts say no use.

A few days ago, there were reports that the recent release of national food safety standards has been questioned. The public is concerned about reducing safety requirements in order to take care of the interests of the company. Are big companies “kidnapping” national food safety standards? Relevant experts gave a negative answer. The public does not buy it.

From the insider's point of formulating a new national standard for dairy products, in the process of formulating national food safety standards, the will of the company and the weight of the voice are so heavy that we have to artificially reduce the safety standards, even if it is attacked by the parties with a heavy weight. Still become a national standard!

Who is leading the development of food safety standards? What is the principle of safeguarding public health and promoting the development of the industry?

If the "will" of a company is incorporated in the process of establishing food safety standards and is dominated by interest groups, who will say such food safety standards? Who will protect the interests? How can we protect public health? What is the standard of food safety that is used by some industry giants? How should we, when formulating food safety standards, reject the will of the enterprise and submit to the will of the public?