Two Stories from China on the Same Day (with an update)
The curious juxtaposition of these two stories from China on the same day is striking.
In the first story, two men were sentenced to death for purposely poisoning the food in a snack bar in Shenzhen City with sodium nitrite. It appears that a deal to develop a skating rink was contingent on removing a popular marketplace, and the ringleaders decided the best way to do that was to poison people at the marketplace, which they did in February 2008. Two people died and 61 others were poisoned. Those sentenced to die were the ones who administered the poison. The manager who masterminded the plan was sentenced to life in prison and the developer of the skating rink was sentenced to fifteen years in prison.
Meanwhile, just yesterday, in Harbin, 57 people at a shopping center got food poisoning from eating a popular Chinese snack food called malatang. The verdict: poisoning from nitrite. It makes you wonder if someone wanted to put a skating rink in there, too.
UPDATE 2/26/09: Make that three stories. Today CNN is reporting that 14 people in Guangzhou were poisoned from a dish of stir-fried pig's liver.
Preparation for Melamine Issues- Updating Crisis Management Plans and Insurance Coverage
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While largely under the radar in the American press due to the compelling election cycle and historical meltdown in the financial markets, the news out of China concerning melamine has gone from bad to worse. Concern about Chinese dairies has morphed into a global crisis affecting what seems like an infinite number of products tainted with melamine.
Melamine has been intentionally introduced into animal feed, dairy products, pet food and other products because it can make diluted or poor-quality products appear to be higher in protein by elevating the total nitrogen content detected by some simple protein tests. Already, the FDA has identified a wide variety of products affected in the first wave of concerns about Chinese dairy products.
How should a food manufacturer or retailer prepare for a melamine issue? Any food company that imports any food ingredient or product from Asian markets should be concerned, and its first steps should be to update its crisis management plan and rehearse a melamine recall.
Food companies should also review with coverage counsel and their brokers whether they have—or can obtain—insurance coverage for financial exposure from melamine tainted products. Financially, a food company will be affected by a melamine issue in at least three ways: recall costs, loss of business and personal injury/consumer fraud claims. Standard comprehensive general liability (“CGL”) insurance may not cover any of these exposures. Most CGL policies do not cover recall costs. While recall and property insurance policies are available, the coverages offered by these policies also may be problematic.
Even personal injury or consumer fraud claims might be denied by CGL insurers. For example, many CGL policies will only provide coverage for occurances that arise out of events that are “accidental.” “Accident” is commonly defined as “a sudden, unforeseen or unintended event.” Even though a food company may have no knowledge of an upstream supplier’s fraudulent acts, some insurers are sure to argue that claims arising from products intentionally tainted by melamine are not covered.
The insurer's argument denying coverage is not a slam dunk and may not prevail. But, the key is to avoid (or minimize) the dispute with the insurer. To the extent possible, when placing insurance, a food company should obtain a representation or endorsement from its insurer that coverage will be extended to claims arising from melamine-tainted food.
Lessons from Toxic Rice and Chinese Dairies - Threats From Bioterrorism and Supplier Fraud
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Manufacturer fraud and bioterrorism should be on the radar screen for any food producer. Apart from the meltdown in the U.S. financial markets and presidential politics, the big news this week is toxic rice from Southeast Asia and melamine-tainted dairy products from China. Both crises were caused by intentional contamination of food products by raw-materials suppliers with the apparent motivation to defraud food manufacturers and sellers.
Both (especially melamine-tainted dairy products) are causing a worldwide health scare and crisis in consumer confidence. Consumers outside of China may not be at serious risk, because the melamine-tainted dairy products are not sold as pure dairy products. Outside of China, Chinese dairy products are used only in small quantities as ingredients in products such as candy and coffee. U.S. and European Union consumers are at risk only when consuming unusually large quantities of these “nondairy” products.
Yet the consumer crisis inside and outside of China could have ameliorated dramatically but for failures in crisis management. Even the presumably government-controlled Chinese press understands this: “Crisis management is closely related to the brand and credibility of an enterprise, but many Chinese enterprises have not developed the capability to react properly when a crisis emerges . . . .”
Consistent with Western principles of crisis management, Chinese experts, according to the Chinese press, opine that “one principle of crisis management is to take a responsible attitude immediately and in a sincere manner, which is of great help for enterprises to rebuild their credibility.”
The press in China points to a company named Sanlu and concludes that “Sanlu, the center of the scandal, provided a bad example of crisis management. When it was first exposed, Sanlu refused to take the blame and passed the buck to innocent dairy farmers, which ignited great anger nationwide. . . . Sanlu didn’t openly admit its products were toxic until Sept. 11. It eventually recalled baby formula manufactured on and before Aug. 6. The scandal led to the fall of chairwoman Tian and the disappearance of all dairy products bearing the brand of Sanlu.”
