Wal-Mart Stores Inc, Starbucks Corp and other food retailers in China scrambled today to assuage growing safety concerns fueled by widened recalls of tainted milk powder and the discovery of toxins in dairy products.
The world’s largest retailer is offering refunds to shoppers who bought baby-milk powder produced by companies whose goods in government tests showed traces of the chemical melamine, Jonathan Dong, a spokesman for Wal-mart, said today by telephone from Beijing. Starbucks, the world’s biggest coffee chain, is working with supplier China Mengniu Dairy Co to ensure milk served at its outlets is safe, spokeswoman Carin Li said from Shanghai.
Safety concerns dominated national media today after the government last night said tests prompted by the discovery of the hazardous chemical in milk powder sold by Sanlu Group Co showed that products from Mengniu, the nation’s biggest liquid milk producer, and 20 other companies were also tainted. The milk powder contaminated with melamine, a chemical used to produce plastics and tan leather, has killed three children.
“I don’t trust any of these products,” said Li Chunling, 60, who was returning powder milk at the Lotus Supermarket in Shanghai this morning, that she’d bought earlier for her 9-month old grandson.