Menu Foods has announced that it will phase out the use of ingredients imported from China in its products:
Menu Foods, North America’s biggest maker of wet pet foods and the company that launched the pet food recall, is phasing out ingredients from China.
It won’t resume using them until Menu and the “world community” are assured that they are safe, says Menu’s outside counsel, David Lillehaug of Fredrikson & Byron.
Menu, which makes pet foods for dozens of brands, recalled hundreds of products in mid-March after reports of kidney failure in pets. An ingredient imported from China was later found to be contaminated with melamine and melamine byproducts that are not allowed in foods.
Eliminating Chinese ingredients may be harder than it sounds. Chinese products are now dominant in the food additive market. They make many of the coloring and flavoring agents used in foods. They’re the primary manufacturer of vitamins. Nearly all ascorbic acid, used as a preservative in many foods, is produced in China. And non-Chinese substitutes may not be readily available: they’ve been driven out of business by low-cost Chinese products.
All Menu Foods wants to do is protect their company from lawsuits. In “Menu Foods Expects To Oppose Class Action Certification; Offers To Settle Individually,” The Cat Gergiev explains how Menu Foods is trying to sucker the human companions of cats into settling so that Menu Foods can avoid punitive damages.
“It won’t resume using them until Menu and the “world community†are assured that they are safe, says Menu’s outside counsel, David Lillehaug of Fredrikson & Byron.”
…so they will continue using these ingredients when assurances of safety are received. How remarkably coincidental then that this statement would be released on the first day of Treasury Secretary Paulson’s trip to China, with food safety a hot topic of discussion. Paulson is hardly going to come home with a Consumer Reports expose; his job is to reassure each side and stimulate trade. I wonder how long before Menu Foods is mainlining the cheap, virtually unregulated food additives again? Bon appetit.