Melamine and other food safety and health scares in China: Comparing households with and without young children

Abstract

a b s t r a c tThe purpose of this study was to determine whether household responses to melamine and other recent food safety and health scares in China in recent years differed between households that did or did not have young children (less than six years of age). A consumer survey was conducted in Hohhot, China in September 2009, one year after the melamine contamination of milk was disclosed to the public. Households with young children who were not being breast-fed reported that they had reduced milk consumption by at least 1/3 in the immediate aftermath of the melamine disclosure and 39% reported that they cut out milk consumption altogether. A significantly higher percentage of households with children reported being concerned with the effects of melamine in milk and two communicable diseases: SARS and H1N1 influenza than were those with no children. A significantly higher percentage of households with no young children were concerned with the effects of Trace Sudan in chicken, Clenbuterol in pork, chicken eggs with red yolks, and excess iodine in milk powder than were those with young children. All households that reduced consumption of fluid milk following news of the melamine contamination reported a much greater concern with most food safety and health scares than did households that did not reduce consumption of fluid milk. Survey data revealed that most consumers had a relatively low level of knowledge of the Food Safety Law that went into effect just over three months before this survey was conducted.Households with children also were significantly more concerned about melamine and two communicable diseases, SARS and H1N1 than were households without children.

Urban Chinese Consumers’ Willingness to Pay for Pork with Certified Labels: A Discrete Choice Experiment

“…Despite the little evidence, we argue that feed information is an important attribute in the Chinese context. This is because several notorious food safety outbreaks happened in China, i.e., the scandals that baby milk formula was contaminated by melamine, and that fresh pork contaminated by clenbuterol [30,31]. Other studies conducted in developed societies have also focused on animal welfare.…”

Consumer anxieties about food grain safety in China

“…In Table 3, 58% of respondents are very concerned about unsafe food events reported by TV, newspapers and the Internet, which covered a variety of unsafe food events, such as adulteration and unsafe environments of food production and processing. Their concerns increase with the birth of their first child (Qiao et al 2012), with major diseases or death of family members or friends, or more life experiences of suffering unsafe food consumption. Fourteen percent of respondents are occasionally concerned about them through casual conversation or via social media, while 28% of respondents are not concerned about it.…”

Food safety concerns in urban China: Consumer preferences for pig process attributes

“…Moreover, the domestic food-poisoning accident involving melamine-contaminated powdered milk in 2008 reverberated far and wide, causing serious international concern (Qiao, Guo, & Klein, 2010). In 2011, a new scandal due to the presence of clenbuterol hydrochloride in pork involved one of the largest Chinese meat manufacturers (Qiao, Guo, & Klein, 2012).…”