Formula sellers face tighter rules

Chinese consumers can seek compensation directly from baby formula retailers if they have bought milk powder with quality problems, signaling the country's latest effort to guarantee food safety, experts said on Sunday.

After infant formula sellers compensate consumers, they can in turn ask for compensation from dairy producers if the producers are the source of the quality problem, China Food and Drug Administration (CFDA) said in a statement released on Wednesday.

Retailers including supermarkets, food stores and pharmacies are required to sell infant formula on separate shelves. Baby formula products that will expire in less than a month need to be highlighted to consumers or pulled off shelves, the statement said.

"The statement has highlighted the responsibilities of baby formula sellers after a series of problems have been exposed. Some sellers even can not find the producer when there is a quality problem," Chen Lianfang, a dairy industry analyst at Beijing Orient Agribusiness Consultants, told the Global Times on Sunday.

The compensation rule mentioned by the CFDA is actually not new, but has sent a signal that authorities will strengthen supervision of baby formula retailers, according to Li Weimin, a lawyer at Beijing Weibo Law Firm.

"China's law on consumer rights and interests, and law on product quality both state that consumers can seek compensation from either retailers or producers if there is a quality problem," Li told the Global Times on Sunday.

"However, given increasing consumption of imported infant formula, it is difficult for consumers to seek compensation from a foreign dairy producer in real practice," he said, noting that such an administrative order will facilitate consumers' compensation procedures.

The tightening of rules on milk powder retailers comes at a time when China is expanding a trial program in allowing drugstores to sell baby formula.

Drugstores should meet three requirements to sell baby formula: no history of selling counterfeit drugs, having separate counters and storage space for baby formula, as well as having professional salespeople to sell infant formulas, according to another statement released by the CFDA on Wednesday.

Furthermore, salespeople are not allowed to mislead consumers through exaggerating the effect of infant formulas sold in drugstores, the statement said.

Drugstores in some cities including Beijing, Nanjing and Taiyuan began to sell infant formula as early as late October. Currently no sales figures are available, but local media reports said consumers are not so interested in the new sales channel due to limited product categories, inconvenient payment methods and less attractive prices.

"There is no evidence that baby formula sold in drugstores have better quality than those sold in supermarkets," a mother of a one-year-old baby surnamed Xia in Beijing told the Global Times on Sunday.

"I still prefer to ask my friends to buy baby formula for me from Germany, where prices are lower and the product quality is better," she said.

CFDA's statements were part of China's efforts to regulate the dairy industry in a bid to guarantee food safety.

The food safety committee under the State Council held talks with eight major dairy producers including Mengniu and Yili on Friday, urging them not to purchase fresh and raw milk from illegal operators and not to rush to buy sources of raw dairy materials.

Local regulators should strengthen random inspections of dairy producers, and crack down on activities that disrupt the raw milk market, the committee said in a statement on Friday.