Friday, November 14, 2014

Chinese dairy hit by brucellosis and TB

Modern Dairy, one of China’s largest milk producers, has been hit with cases of tuberculosis and brucellosis identified in cattle it shipped to auction.

The company is trying to head off a plunge in the value of its shares that trade on a number of global stock markets, describing the incident as isolated and saying that no milk from sick cows has been marketed to the public.

The Chinese dairy industry has been plagued by many quality and food safety issues, such as melamine additions to boost protein content for nutrition tests.

That has, in turn, generated a keen demand for imported dairy products and infant formulas.

One of the projects has been construction of a huge infant-formula plant in Toronto that intends to use skim milk powder, which is in a persistent state of burdensome and costly surplus on the Canadian market.

That plant has, however, not begun processing, apparently because of red tape related to marketing boards and international trade commitments that make Canadian exports of dairy products problematic.