September 12, 2008, Sanlu Group, the largest producer of milk powder in China, rocked the country, when she admitted that her baby formula was contaminated with toxic chemical melamine. National Agency for the inspection of China to expand its investigation to other dairy producers across the country. Shockingly, the products 21 other dairy products, including some well-known Chinese brands, and also tested positive for melamine. Due to consumption of melamine bonds dairy, more than 56,000 babies and young children became sick and four children died of kidney failure at the end of September. Panic melamine has also led many countries referring to the ban and products using dairy products from China. When Sanlu milk was a key culprit of the crisis after it was opened infant formula contain as much as four times more than other brands of melamine tainted, the company apologized to the public. Sanlu also explained that the raw milk by unscrupulous dealers illegally added melamine to milk. However, he was unable to explain its delay in bringing public attention when she first received complaints of consumers in late 2007. Instead, Sanlu tried to cover the news, until they led him to a new partner Zealand's Fonterra, which later warned the government of New Zealand. As a result of the milk crisis, the local government of Shijiazhuang, where the headquarters of Sanlu, was charged deter news from the central government. Fonterra wrote off all of its investment in Sanlu, and Sanlu, finally declared bankruptcy on December 24, 2008. Sanlu incident highlighted the failure of the entire dairy supply chain in China and forced the government and industry, the collective effort to restore consumer confidence in Chinese dairy products. "Hide
on Jiangyong Lu, Zhigang Tao, Claudia HL Woo Source: University of Hong Kong, 24 pages. Publication Date: June 11, 2009. Prod. #: HKU837-PDF-ENG