You are here: Home > China > Nation

2 held for altering milk production dates

: 0 Comment(s)Print E-mail Shanghai Daily, August 23, 2012

Adjust font size:

Two men were detained by police yesterday after they altered production dates on thousands of cartons of Mengniu milk nearing their expiry date and sold them in some cities in east China Zhejiang Province, according to a China Central Television report.

Mengniu president Sun Yiping.[ File photo ]

Wang Sunfu, a Mengniu sales agent and an accomplice surnamed Zhao in the province's Yiwu City, bought 3,000 boxes of milk from a staff member of the dairy producer in early May, paying half price because their expiry date was approaching, the Zhejiang Industrial and Commercial Administrative Bureau said. Zhao surrendered himself after police detained Wang.

Wang then hired people to change the production date of the milk to May 19 and June 1 from December last year and sold each box at 45 yuan (US$7.2), the normal price in cities including Yiwu and Jinhua.

His fraud was uncovered when industrial and commercial authorities visited a warehouse in Pujiang County in Jinhua and found 160 boxes of milk bearing the false production date.

Inner Mongolia based-Mengniu, one of China's largest dairy producers, has been under fire before for a raft of product contamination scandals.

China's General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine said in December that a random sampling found excessive levels of flavacin M1 - a substance linked to liver cancer - in batches of milk products from Mengniu.

In November 2011, quality watchdogs in southern Guangdong found unacceptably high levels of bacteria in Mengniu ice cream.

Six months earlier, 251 pupils fell ill after drinking Mengniu milk at school in northwestern Shaanxi Province.

In 2009, China's quality supervisor ordered Mengniu to prove the safety of OMP, an additive, before using it in its milk products. Experts said consuming high levels of OMP, a milk protein, could lead to higher cancer risks.

In May, cows' urine was added to Mengniu milk instead of water to pass authorities' inspections.

"I had stopped purchasing Mengniu products for some months after learning about its products may lead to cancer," said a customer Wu Wei living in Shanghai. She said she bought different brands of milk from time to time to avoid safety risks.

"Chinese should boycott Mengniu's products together to push the company to improve," a microblogger said on Weibo.