Wal-Mart Finally Attempts to Address Food Safety Concerns

Wal-Mart audit many factory too, but not find no thing wrong.

will Wal-Mart do better job auditing food?

i think not.

“Analysts said the move could give Wal-Mart a pro-safety image boost that would help its grocery business, already one of its strongest sales areas along with home electronics, pharmacy and the health and beauty aisles. “An image boost??Botox may give one an image “boost”, but it doesn’’t make you younger! The real issue is how effective and reliable wil these “audits” actually be,AND,who will select the auditors?  WalMart has a CEO of international regions,Michael T. Duke,as well as Ed Chan representing WalMart China, on Boards of Directors for GFSI, a division of CIE. An upcoming International Food Safety Conference will be held in Amersterdam on Feb.15-18,2008. The title is “Creating Values from Food Risk Management.” One can only wonder why auditors,or a form of them, have not been employed by W/M here in the U.S., long before now?

I mentioned in the above post the umbrella organization CIES, of which the GFSI is a program. Interestingly enough, its objectives are not relegated to foodstuffs,only,but larger issues affecting the worldwide retail workplace, in general. As such,I thought this might be of interest to some:  What is the Global Social Compliance Programme (GSCP) ?

GSCP is a business-driven programme for companies who want to harmonise their respective efforts in delivering a shared, global and sustainable approach for the improvement of working conditions in the global supply chain.

It offers a global platform to promote knowledge exchange and best practices in order to build comparability and transparency between existing systems, whether individual or collaborative.

GSCP’s approach is to establish an inclusive and participative process for companies, across all categories and sectors, regardless of the compliance system they use. This includes retailer and international brands in textile, electronics, toys, furniture, food, footwear, etc.

To ensure the vision is understood and shared and gains genuine drive from the top, this undertaking has to be made at CEO level in each company.

Participating companies’ CEOs are asked to sign a public statement of support to work collaboratively towards the achievement of the programme’s key objectives.

GSCP also associates civil society stakeholders to guarantee the programme’s integrity and inclusiveness and relies on the widest range of knowledge and expertise.

Why GSCP?

The question of working conditions in the global supply chain is an increasingly sensitive topic to which retailer and brand manufacturers have responded by developing codes of conduct, individually or collaboratively, and voluntary monitoring systems. Based on careful, methodical approaches, these codes, and the mechanisms to implement them, have brought about real benefits to workers in most sensitive countries.

However, the number of codes has proliferated and approaches have somewhat diverged. This has led to duplication (with the multiplication of overlapping audits per supplier) and sends a confused message to suppliers and to public authorities as to what is expected in terms of fundamental labour rights.

To address the need for consistency, and to focus on the resolution of root causes of non-compliance, leading global companies have decided to work together towards convergence of existing systems worldwide by launching the Global Social Compliance Programme.

How does GSCP support existing systems?

GSCP supports existing efforts by helping users identify and share best practices. It is not a new code or monitoring system, nor a substitute to existing systems.

GSCP offers the platform where differences between existing systems (individual or collaborative) can be aired, discussed and reconciled in order to move towards more convergence while preserving each system’s specificity.

The GSCP model is based on company engagement and direct participation. The link with different systems/initiatives is therefore provided by their member companies. Companies participating actively in GSCP will continue working with their systems/initiative and help foster a dialogue and the comparability, transparency and trust needed to drive real change.

The latest tainted food case was in Japan with imported Chinese dumplings, nothing to do with Walmart.

The problem is China’s, not the retailers. If retailers have to add their own level of inspection to items (whether food or toys) it will not work. People will still associate the “made in China” label with risk.

Even starting an inspection program is an admission that there is a problem and will just reinforce the negative image of Chinese goods.

The Chinese government has started to realize the problem it has, whether they can fix it, or fix it fast enough, remains to be seen. Many aspects of Chinese society are showing strains because of unplanned over expansion.

In light of the above subject matter, this recent article about tainted imports is timely(including info on source of poisoned pet food this past year.)

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TOXIC TRADE
3 companies indicted for poisoned pet food
Contaminated gluten just latest in list of ‘filthy’ products from China

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Posted: February 06, 2008
7:06 pm Eastern

© 2008 WorldNetDaily

Just six months after an epidemic of pet illnesses and deaths across the United States was blamed on contaminated Chinese proteins in pet food, the federal government has announced indictments against three companies, including two from China.

Named in the indictments released by the U.S. attorney’s office in Kansas City, Mo., were Xuzhou Anying Biologic Technology Development Co., Suzhou Textiles, Silk, Light Industrial Products, Arts and Crafts I/E Co. and ChemNutra Inc. of Las Vegas, according to a report from the Associated Press.

The tainted pet food was blamed for the deaths of dozens, perhaps hundreds, of house pets last year and an inflation in the fear American consumers felt toward products from China amidst a long series of reports about contaminated products ranging from sardines to toothbrushes.

The companies were named in two separate but related indictments, the report said.

One alleged Xuzhou Anying Biologic, headquartered in China’s Jiangsu Province, and Suzhou Textiles, of the city with the same name, introduced contaminated or adulterated food into interstate commerce as well as introducing “misbranded” food, for a total of 26 counts .

The report said ChemNutra, owned by Chinese national Sally Quing Miller and husband Stephen S. Miller, were accused of the same charges plus one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud.

The report said the indictments accuse Suzhou of incorrectly labeling more than 800 tons of wheat gluten that had been poisoned with melamine to avoid governmental inspections, and then failing to declare the material when it was hauled to the United States to be used in food.

The government alleges the product was delivered to ChemNutra at the port of entry in Kansas City, and resold to pet food makers who used it in their products.

Government authorities allege the melamine was dumped into the gluten so that it would meet a “required standard” for protein content.

“Millions of pet owners remember the anxiety of last year’s pet food recall. The indictments are the product of an investigation that began in the wake of that recall,” said a statement prepared by U.S. Attorney John Wood.

WND, which has been documenting reports of contaminated products from China, has confirmed Food and Drug Administration inspectors are finding increased cases with products that have been contaminated with carcinogens, bacteria or banned drugs.

In one month in 2007, some 257 refusals of Chinese products were recorded, compared to only 140 from Mexico and 23 from Canada.

Among the products turned away from U.S. borders were:

salted bean curd cubes in brine with chili and sesame oil
dried apple
dried peach
dried pear
dried round bean curd
dried mushroom
olives
frozen bay scallops
frozen Pacific cod
sardines
frozen seafood mix
fermented bean curd
frozen eel
ginseng
frozen red raspberry crumble
mushrooms
Frozen catfish was stopped because it was laced with banned antibiotics. Scallops and sardines were turned away because they were coated with putrefying bacteria.

Toothbrushes were rejected because they were improperly labeled. And the FDA found Chinese toothpaste contaminated with a chemical used in antifreeze – the same chemical that killed people in Panama in 2006 when it turned up in cough syrup.

In one case, the U.S. warned consumers not to buy or eat imported fish labeled as monkfish, which actually may be puffer fish, containing a potentially deadly toxin called tetrodotoxin. Many times inspectors simply call the products “filthy” when they can smell the rot and decay evident on arrival in America.

In the age of globalization, food imports in America are big business and getting bigger. In 2006, they represented $64 billion – a 33 percent increase over 2003. No country is increasing its food exports faster than China – about 20 percent in the last year alone.

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P.S.: Please note that WalMart,nor any other retailer, is named in this article-this is about the breadth and scope of the products and the producers of said products.