China connection ping!
“I found the information about Vitamin C interesting. I had no idea that many of our vitamins came from China.”
On a related topic, just what the HELL does our FDA do anymore?
I wouldn’t stop with just food items. My wife brought home some dishes made in china which were supposedly microwave safe. They contained metal, and most probably lead. Tossed them all in the garbage.
Contaminated food ping
I wasn’t aware of it either. Now I have to go check the bottles & hope I can see where they come from.
I didn’t know about the vitamins, either. How much do we consumers not know about the provenence of our foodstuffs?
It’s not like it shows up on labels, except for obvious things, like farm raised shrimp, etc.
One of the main reasons US businesses move plants to other countries is the lack of regulations.
Keeping foods safe costs money.
Pharmaceuticals imported from Canada may be cheaper, "but we cannot guarantee their safety therefore we will not let you buy them" .
But don't worry about your food!
As if MSG wasn’t bad enough.
The risks pale when compared to the risks to the companies that choose to use these "cheap" ingredients. Haven't these avaricious asses heard of trail lawyers? Pockets get deeper hour-by-hour over in Big Cheap land.
And who are the trial lawyers' partners who have virtual unlimited power? The states attorneys general who discovered that "settlements" are a bottomless source of revenue.
Breaking News on Food & Beverage Development - Europe
DSM talks vitamin quality with Quali-C brand
By Jess Halliday
27/03/2007- DSM Nutritional Products is emphasising quality as the crucial point of differentiation between the vitamin C it produces in the green hills of Scotland - now known as Quali-C - and cheaper material from Asia.
DSM Nutritional Products (formerly Roche Vitamins) has a 70-year track record in vitamin C production. It became the only bulk vitamin C producer in the West in late 2005, when BASF ceased production at its plant in Denmark in response to price pressure from Chinese suppliers, and opted instead to source its supplies under contract from Asian companies.
Now it is leveraging that position with an ingredient brand that speaks to its industry customers of known quality, traceability and supply reliability.
Gareth Barker, head of global marketing, human nutrition and health, told NutraIngredients.com that Quali-C is not simply an ingredient branding exercise. It is an exercise in building awareness that opting for the cheaper material of uncertain provenance could have catastrophic consequences for a manufacturer and its brand further down the line.
The quality of the product is intrinsically linked with perceptions of the customer's consumer brand - and with wider, serious implications such as sustainability, the environment, and water supply.
Increasingly, consumer concerns about such matters are shaping markets, and it is down to ingredient manufacturers to respond by addressing the industrial aspects of safety, said Barker.
Part of the assurance comes down to traceability. DSM boasts the ability to trace right back to the corn field the non-GMO sugar that is the raw material for the fermentation process.
Control systems, quality management, environmental sustainability, safety management, and training are also said to be integral to total quality management.
Quali-C does come at a higher price than Chinese material, but Barker and Martjin Adorf, global marketing manager, declined to expand on the precise mark-up. They said they could not put a price on differentiation, since "the market decides the price, and customers are prepared to pay a premium."
By contrast, with a lot of the vitamin C on the market, they added, there could be a hidden price to pay.
While at a chemical level the vitamin C may be the same, it is important for customers to look beyond this to "what happens if" their material should prove to be contaminated or sub-standard in some other way.
Concerns range from down times to product liability, recalls, damaged relationships consumer uproar - all of which could result in considerable expense that would outstrip the costs of sourcing product of a know quality in the first place.
While there have not yet been any issues with vitamin C, other health ingredients have been hit by quality problems, contamination, and counterfeiting.
"It could be just a matter of time before it hits vitamin C as well".
Ultimately, it would be damaging to the nutrition industry as a whole if, as a result of a problem in consumer products caused by low quality vitamin C, the message should be that vitamin C is bad for you.
DSM has not been immune to the price pressure exerted on the vitamin C market by China. Until late 2005 it had a vitamin C production plant in Belvidere, USA in addition to its remaining facility in Dalry, Scotland.
But despite DSM referring to its unique position as the only vitamin C producer outside Asia in its marketing materials, Barker said this is not the main reason the company is highlighting quality assurance.
"We are in the business of selling high quality nutritional ingredients to all markets around the world. It is more of an evolution," he said.
Adorf added that DSM does not view the present situation as healthy. While overall supply of vitamin C is outstripping demand, it seems there is an undersupply of quality material. DSM says its Dalry plant is utilising its full capacity, and Quali-C is "all taken out of [its] hands every day". Adorf would not disclose the production capacity at Dalry.
As for the potential for future expansion, should current demand continue, he said that is not a decision that would be taken lightly.
But DSM evidently remains wholeheartedly committed to vitamin C.
So much so, in fact, that it has invested heavily in R&D for new, breakthrough production technology.
While it is still too early to say when the new technology will go into production, Barker described it as "a radical innovation".
The caveat of “free trade” that is being ignored is that one should not engage in free trade with your enemy. Free trade all you want with free countries. This mess is just suicidal and foolish, and could be the death of all of us.
I was going to post this on another related thread from earlier.
I wanted to go to the store and double check, have done it.
Christopher Ranch garlic, the Gilroy Ca. giant.
Their chopped garlic in a jar,
Made In China.
It’s funny they want to force farmers to tag and register everything But..
Animal ID Makers in Hog Heaven (long but good)
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1574414/posts
All livestock to be registered with state [WI-Yes, fish too] ^
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1509267/posts
I think you are seeing the reasons why they want foreign governments and corps. to run OUR ports, Super highway up from Mexico foreign trucks & drivers.
Americans would stop delivering & unloading ships. To protest this.
This is not only Clinton’s fault but also the Bush’s fault.
I’m exasperated up with the lot.
My original supply was from my doctor. The pills had no taste and worked marvelously.
When I ran out, I went to Trader Joe's to get a cheaper version. They tasted foul, gave me headaches, and so I quit using them. Soon after I read about how lots of people were getting severely sick and dying from L-Trytophane.
In my mind L-Tryptophane was not the problem, it was all the other garbage put in the pill by particular manufacturers, who may have been from China for all I know.
Another thing to consider:
There seems to be an increase in the occurence of Autism.
This increase is greater among the smarter/wealthier population.
These people shop at places like Trader Joe's more than the average person.
Is Autism a result of bad ingredients from China?
A friend who uses Chinsese herbs emailed me today that Mayway, the company she orders from, stated that many Chinese herb formulas are contaminated with drugs and heavy metals. Mayway now uses certified organic suppliers and tests all the herbs they sell, my friend told me.
Eat locally-produced foods. Problem solved.
Just had an email exchange with a Canadian manufacturer, they claim no Chinese ingredients in their product.