Melamine – Genesis of a Crisis

Sanlu claimed that farmers who supplied cow’s milk to the company were the perpetrators, and some farmers have indeed already been put into prison. But how can you explain the fact that this case has also affected other manufacturers?

24/09/08 More and more cases of infant kidney stone problems have appeared since August. People became suspicious that it must be related to a famous brand of infant formula. Well-known milk company Shijiazhuang Sanlu Group, who were the first to launch infant milk formula in China, claimed that 7 million tons of its infant formula milk had been contaminated with melamine. A recall of its infant milk powder was eventually called.

The case is becoming increasingly serious. It is reported that 12,892 infants stayed at hospital for the treatment of kidney stone problems, 39,965 infants with kidney stone problems have been recovered and 4 infants died, according to the statistics by September 21. A lot of infants are lining up in hospitals for medical examination. The authority sent expert teams to make a complete check of all the infant formula available on the market. It checked 491 batches of infant formula products produced by 109 manufacturers.

The terrible results showed that 69 batches of products produced by 22 enterprises contained melamine at different levels. It included the big giant milk manufacturers like Shijiazhuang Sanlu group, Yili group of Inner Mongolia, Mengniu group of Inner Mongolia and Shanghai Bright dairy industrial group. Among them, Shijiazhuang Sanlu was the most serious, with 22 people including Ms. Tian Wenhua Chairman of the Board of the company put in prison as a result of the scandal. Famous branded products such as Yili, Mengniu and Shanghai Bright were removed, and other products related to the contaminated milk were also removed.

The question is who mixed melamine into the milk. Shijiangzhuang Sanlu claimed at the beginning that farmers who supplied cow’s milk to the company were the perpetrators, and some farmers have indeed already been put into prison. But how can you explain the fact that this case has also affected other manufacturers? It has been reported that melamine is a controlled product in China, normally not sold to individuals. So it hints that the case may relate to the manufacturers themselves. The story is why would they add melamine into a milk product, especially to formula milk powder.

Melamine is a chemical normally used for panel production. It contains 3 nitrogen in one anomeric carbon atom, while normal protein contains only one nitrogen in one anomeric carbon atom. So its nitrogen content is higher than that of protein. In analysis methods, China normally adopted a nitrogen determination method (Kjeldahl method) to measure the protein content. A higher nitrogen content also means a higher protein content. So adding melamine to milk will greatly cut down the production costs, as it’s about US$100 for 1 ton of melamine, while increasing the protein content of the product. So the infant milk with a protein content of over 20g often seen on the label of the product, is higher than imported formula milk.

This really is a big disaster for the Chinese milk industry, and the number of products on the shelf will be substantially reduced, as people begin to become afraid of drinking milk. It must be noted that it took a long time to train Chinese people into the habit of drinking milk in the first place. It’s already been reported that some farmers began slaughtering cows and thrown out milk. The government has already taken measures to reduce farmers’ losses. The milk manufacturers got together recently to discuss how to treat this case and what measures should be adopted to prevent such a case from occurring again, while guaranteeing food safety. More than 700 dairy companies with no contaminated milk sent their guarantees to the State Quality Bureau. It’s been reported that the State Standard Committee has organised experts to make modifications to dairy standards, which will be published within this year. Experts in this field have called on setting up an administration organisation to control dairy quality.

Comment By our Chinese correspondent