White Rabbit candies are back on shelves in limited numbers

China’s popular White Rabbit Creamy Candy has returned to shelves in Shanghai with a green “Quality” sticker to ensure consumers that it’s melamine-free. Shoppers so far seem to take a forgive-and-forget attitude, according to the company that makes it.

White Rabbit candy (Photo courtesy Shanghai Guan Sheng Yuan Food Ltd.)
“Our promotion in Shanghai First Food Mall was a big success” Thursday, said Wang Yiyi, spokeswoman for Shanghai Guan Sheng Yuan Food Ltd. By four hours into the return-to-stores promotion, 20,000 yuan ($2,900) of the candy was sold, she said. “The candy was in such short supply that we need to get more batches from the factories to meet demand.”

The candy will first be sold with its new melamine-free packaging in Shanghai, then in other Chinese cities before being sold overseas again…

HONG KONG (Reuters) - Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao said his government must assume some responsibility for the latest milk powder scandal in which at least four infants have died and tens of thousands fallen ill.

Many Chinese milk companies were implicated and a few of them apologized this week for their involvement in the latest in a grim series of food- and product-safety scandals to blight the “made in China” brand.

China’s Health Ministry said 5,824 infants were still being treated and six were in serious condition.

“We feel that although problems occurred at the company, the government also has a responsibility,” Wen told the magazine Science…

Cartoonist Youshou’s uniquely Chinese version of “The Bunny Suicides”

“BEIJING (Reuters) - Chinese police have detained six people suspected of producing and selling melamine, the chemical at the center of the country’s scandal over tainted dairy products, the official Xinhua news agency said.

The arrests were made in Hohhot, capital of the northern region of Inner Mongolia, which is China’s main dairy-producing area, Xinhua said in an overnight report, citing the municipal government. …

The arrests follow the detention last week of 22 people in Hebei province suspected of being involved in a network there for producing melamine and selling it on to milk farms and purchasing stations.”

The milk scare has been a boon to green, Tibetan yak milk:

“A pioneering Chinese company is to market pasteurised Tibetan yak milk in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou, in the hope that it will become a new superfood in the world’s most populous country.

At 24 yuan (£2) for a small 250ml carton, Feifan - meaning ‘uncommonly good’ - costs several times as much as cow’s milk. ‘It’s very natural, green, pure and high-quality. That’s our big selling point - we aim at the high-end market,’ said Ding Pengcheng of the Treasure of the Plateau Yak Milk Company. Over the next three years, the firm is to spend millions to crack the domestic and international markets, with the help of state investment. Yaks produce fewer than 300 litres of milk a year, while cows yield 35 times as much. The firm pays Tibetan farmers 16 yuan or more per litre; eight times the price of standard milk…”

Atlantic senior editor Corby Kummer draws a straight line from China’s food scares today to America’s “Jungle” 100 years ago:

So far there’s no evidence that U.S. products contain milk powder tainted with melamine, a toxic chemical used in plastics (think 1950s tableware) whose nitrogen raises protein levels in tests. But the day isn’t far off. Already the FDA has issued warnings to avoid poor White Rabbit, and also Mr. Brown brand instant coffee and tea.

The Chinese government hasn’t executed anyone connected with the scandal, which has killed four infants and sickened 53,000 people. But it will have to do something to convince people that it wants to keep its promise last year to crack down on lax inspections and corruption. And a long article this weekend in The New York Times about the reports of sick babies the government squelched in order to avoid negative publicity leading up to the Olympics will only make the world less confident in any food from China they buy…

Don Lee writes about his own life in Shanghai amid food scares:

A friend here who frequently travels to Los Angeles returned to Shanghai last week with a suitcase stuffed with infant formula to give to his Chinese staff members. If you see less formula on your supermarket shelves, you’ll know why.

Though the government has tried to tone down news reports on the crisis, the topic is on everybody’s mind, if not his or her lips. My barber said he was feeding his baby formula from South Korea. My Chinese tutor, father of a 6-month-old boy, said he hoped his wife would breast-feed for as long as possible. If not, they could hire a wet nurse, though they are in high demand now.

Since moving to Shanghai in the summer of 2004, my wife and I (we have three children) have tried to be careful about what we eat and where. We avoid street vendors, red meat and unpeeled fruit. Before ordering at restaurants, we tend to check out the restroom, figuring that if it’s not clean, the kitchen probably isn’t either…

CNN’s Kyung Lah talks to a Chinese lawyer pushing for and against the system:
“Attorney Li Fangping hoped to help, forming a nationwide network of 124 volunteer lawyers offering free advice to the parents, and legal representation if they want to sue the milk companies for damages. But his efforts landed him in trouble…”

Disheartening news of an attempted cover-up:
“The Chinese company at the centre of a milk contamination scandal is reported to have asked for government help to cover up the extent of the problem.
The official People’s Daily said the Sanlu Group asked Shijiazhuang city government to help ‘manage’ the media response to the case.
It made the request in August, weeks before the contamination of milk with melamine became public knowledge.
It comes as a new list of tainted milk products is published.”

The first lawsuit again Sanlu:

“BEIJING - The parents of a baby allegedly sickened by tainted infant formula are suing the dairy at the heart of China’s contaminated milk scandal, state media reported, as 15 more companies were accused Wednesday of producing spiked products.

From the time of birth, the 1-year-old in central China’s Henan province was fed infant formula made by Sanlu Group Co., according to a report by Caijing, a leading Chinese business magazine.

The report says the case is believed to be the first civil lawsuit filed in response to the melamine contamination of liquid milk, yogurt and other products made with milk. Four infants have died and some 54,000 have become ill after drinking the contaminated formula, which has been linked to kidney stones…”