July 27, 2012

 

 

Chinese dairy firm, Bright Dairy, has confessed on July 23 that batches of its reduced-fat cheese and butter have been discovered to contain excessive bacteria.

 

This is the third food safety scandal hitting the dairy company in recent weeks.

 

Excessive bacteria develop due to long-distance transportation and unstable temperatures

 

The Guangzhou Administration for Industry and Commerce announced on July 20 that batches of Bright Dairy's 50% reduced-fat cheese produced on February. 23 and 125-gram slabs of butter produced on April 23 were found to contain excessive bacteria during the administration's second spot check of dairy products in the second quarter of the year. The spot check of 840 pieces of Bright Dairy's 50% reduced-fat cheese and 10 slabs of butter found that two pieces of cheese and one slab of butter contained excessive bacteria.

 

After a root cause analysis, Bright Dairy attributed the excessive bacteria in its products to squeeze damage caused by long-distance transportation as well as unstable temperatures in sales environments.

 

Bright Dairy claimed that they have taken measures to further strengthen supervision and management during transportation process, preventing similar incidents from happening.

 

Quality management and control worried the public.

 

It has been the third time for Bright Dairy to be exposed quality problem.

 

On June 20, the media outlets had reported that six primary school students in Yingshang county of Anhui province had an adverse reaction after drinking fresh milk, produced by Bright Dairy, next to which, alkaline water was again exposed and mixed into the 950-millilitres of Ubest milk available on the market on June 26. This time, the cheese and butter contain excessive bacterial colonies. All these incidents led to the Bright Dairy plunging deeper into the quality issues.

 

After the administration of industry and commerce in Guangzhou released the investigation result, the Bright Dairy issued a statement, making an apology for the three quality problems occurring within one month. The company expressed that they will have a thorough check on every links to factories and circulation systems.

 

People are concerned about the quality supervision and control of the company after several dairy product safety incidents. Due to these quality problems, the Bright Dairy, one of the three dairy product tycoons of China, not only lost the optimal opportunity to expand its market share but also damaged its brand image of safety and reliance.