Food Safety
Recently, a giant Chinese meat company, Shuanghui International, has bought the world’s largest pork producer, Smithfield Foods, at the price of US $4.7 billion. The news immediately went viral on the internet in China probably because the Chinese people are very concerned about food safety.
The food safety scandal in China has been going on for years, from tainted baby formula to diseased pork, from polluted vegetables to heavy-metal rice. In fact, as the pace of the country’s economic growth gets faster, more food safety problems surface. Nearly every type of food you can think of has been a subject of scandal. Chinese people are living in fear. No one knows what food will be next.
Now the merger has aroused the suspicion of the Chinese public about whether Shuanghui International is trying to boost its meat quality by bringing in a foreign partner. After all, being cheated multiple times, Chinese consumers have lost faith in domestic food products. Imported food suddenly is what people are avidly after. The Hong Kong government has had to limit quantities of imported baby formula sales to mainland visitors in order to ensure the supply of the city. Perhaps you have figured out why Chinese tourists in America are so generous with their money on foreign brands. Quality is the key — although vanity is part of it as well!
It’s a shame that Chinese food manufacturers cheat consumers and the government is ineffectual in inspecting the supplies. In this respect, China is far behind the U.S. Many Americans think that China will soon surpass America, but actually China is still very backward.
As more Chinese people become middle-class, they’re consuming more meat. The country has been a net importer of pork since 2008. As urbanization develops rapidly in China, more people will adopt a meat-heavy diet. Thanks to globalization and the expansion of fast food chains and a high-calorie diet, in no time, Chinese kids will look no different than overweight children in the West. The merger of two large meat companies may be good news for the meat-loving Chinese who want the supply of quality pork to keep coming!
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