Fears in China over the safety of locally produced milk powder for infant and child use has spawned a global underground network to supply a worried middle class.
Website TeaLeafNation has exposed the existance of the networks.
For Chinese citizens, and especially young parents, milk powder safety - and food safety in general - has been an incessant worry, with new small-scale scandals erupting every few months, including a recent finding of some baby formula tainted with mercury and aflaxotonin, a highly carcinogenic substance, they say.
A new food safety law and central government statements claiming that 99% of Chinese dairy products are safe have been unable to restore consumer trust.
Middle-class parents choosing to feed their child foreign milk powder might spend anywhere from 25-40% of their monthly salary on foreign imported product, the website reports.
The story on TeaLeafNation delves into one supply network originating in Holland; how customers clamour to get product, how traders help, the reactions of Chinese who live locally, and how regulators have reacted.
New Zealand is named as one of the preferred supply sources for other networks which obviously start informally but may now be becoming more organised in response to the desperate demand. Sadly, such networks will attract the unscrupulous.
This will become a major challenge for Fonterra and other New Zealand suppliers because even one small mis-step can cause major reputational damage.
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