Hello Everyone!
Whew! I didn’t realize that more than a month’s gone by since my last posting. Time really flies fast nowadays, what with the mad race to earn a living, continually seek career success and basically try to be rich and famous (whatever that means-hehehe).
Now that we’re on the subject of searching for wealth, I think that ties in with what’s been happening with all the melamine contamination in milk and dairy products.
To put it simply, melamine is a protein-derivative. It basically substitute for the lack in real, honest-to-goodness milk in dairy products–from fresh milk to powder formulas to chocolates and cookies. You see, when regulators check a product, the normal way to check for dairy content is through checking protein levels. However, we all know that the global supply for milk solids is low–what with thin cows, unjuicy and unrich grass affected by global warming (oh dear, let’s not go there).
So with melamine, manufacturers meet the required protein level, without having to raise prices. Although as we now all kno, what was supposed to be a cost-saving additive had fatal consequences.
There are manufacturers out there, in fact, big, global brands that unwittingly sourced products from China laced with melamine. It was obviously a cost-saving mechanism, or put in another way, a means to keep consumer prices low, and maximize profits. But there were some that saw the looming problem years back–global brands that sent key personnel and experts to China and saw what looked like a problem, but didn’t realize it would turn-out this way, and simply opted to use expensive milk solids that were sure were safe and well-made.
So what’s the moral of the story here–let me borrow a phrase that was made popular a few headlines back–moderate greed. Business leaders should realize that food is key for everyone. Food businesses not only have a mandate to make a profit, but to make sure what they make is safe and of good quality.
So there.
P.S. I have decided to post this letter from the President of Mead Johnson, in the interest of keeping the public informed. As you might have noticed these past weeks, other milk companies have been spending millions and millions of Pesos for advertorials and advertising–clearly a defensive move versus the melamine scare. Mead Johnson has been “quiet” relative to every other milk company–because their products were never tested, nor suspected of melamine contamination by the BFAD. So in the interest of giving Mead Johnson a venue to inform their stakeholders, please do read the letter below.
We at Mead Johnson assure parents and the general public that all of our milk products manufactured, sold and distributed in the Philippines are safe to drink.
We do not use any dairy or protein-containing ingredients from China in any of our products and manufacturing sites worldwide.
All of our products in the Philippines—which include all variants of Alacta, Enfalac, Enfagrow, Enfakid, Lactum and Sustagen, are manufactured domestically, or, as in the case of Enfalac Premature and Nutramigen, are sourced from the Netherlands. All of these products contain dairy ingredients sourced from New Zealand. This allows us to monitor the production of our milk products at all times. As a world leader in infant and children’s nutrition, we use the highest quality and safety standards; meeting or exceeding those standards established by the governing regulatory agencies in each country where we do business. Our products are subjected to numerous quality control checks before, during and after production to ensure their quality and safety.
Moreover, because of Mead Johnson’s stringent quality standards, none of our products worldwide have been suspected to contain melamine.
However, due to the increased concerns raised by the recent China contamination, Mead Johnson Nutritionals now voluntarily tests finished products for the presence of melamine at all manufacturing sites. No presence of melamine has been detected either by our own testing, or by testing conducted by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
Mead Johnson remains steadfast with our mission statement, which is to provide infants and children with the best start in life. We will not compromise their health and safety in any way.
Should you have other queries or concerns, please feel free to contact us through our hotline at 841-8222, or 1-800-1-888-6861 (toll-free). You may also email us through meadjohnson.cares4u@bms.com.
We thank our stakeholders for the trust and continued patronage.
(signed)
Paul Richards
President and General Manager
Mead Johnson (Philippines)
1 Comment
April 24, 2009 at 7:36 pm
Hey, nice tips. Perhaps I’ll buy a glass of beer to the person from that forum who told me to go to your site