May 6, 2014

China bans imports of British cheese

After inspections were carried out earlier in the year to ensure all UK suppliers of dairy products conformed to the new Chinese Food Safety Law, China has suspended all imports of cheese from Britain from May 1, according to a UK dairy industry trade group.

Issues related to maintenance, air sanitisation, raw milk transport temperatures and chemical storage were cited as the reasons for the temporary ban.

According to British media outlets, China put the ban in place after some of its officials took a look at just one dairy-the visit was nominally an unofficial visit but once on-site, the Chinese officials conducted a full audit. The facility has not been named, but it reportedly wasn't even exporting any dairy products to China. In a further twist of the cheese knife, Ireland passed the Chinese audit with a clean bill of health, and received authorisation to export its cheeses to China just as the UK ban went into effect.

It seems possible that cheese ban is itself a tit-for-tat response to an earlier move by the UK. On April 30, the day before British cheese exports to China were blocked, the UK adopted an EU law that bans the sale of unlicensed herbal products, in particular those used for Chinese herbal medicine.

Dairy product safety is also a sore subject in China, which is still traumatised by the tainted milk powder that caused the death of six infants and sickened thousands in 2008. China's new food safety law, which purportedly prompted the UK cheese ban, is seen by some analysts as an attempt to level the playing field between domestic milk companies and foreign firms that have thrived due to public doubts about food safety. Still, problems with production still mean that China imports huge quantities of dairy products.

UK farming Minister George Eustice said that inspectors will now visit all factories exporting cheese to China to demonstrate their high standards, so these restrictions can be lifted as soon as possible.