Fonterra have been critised for being slow to effect a recall of products following large scale sickness attributed to Anmum contaminated milk product in China.

In China over 6,000 babies are ill, three have died and around 150 have serious kidney failure after drinking milk powder which had been contaminated with melamine, a toxic substance used in plastics manufacture.

The contaminated product has been supplied from their 43% owned San Lu subsidiary who market the NZ owned Anmum brand under license from the NZ parent company Fonterra Co-operative Group.

In a statement of “what we Stand For”, Fonterra’s website boldly states”. “Dairy is our life’s work. It’s our passion and it’s what we do best.” “We have always marvelled at the simple nutrition of dairy. In an age when you need a chemistry degree to understand food labels, milk is pure milk, providing the building blocks for a healthy life.”
Since New Zealands dairy farmers’ Fonterra Co-operative Group was formed in 2001, they have become the world’s largest dairy exporter with over 11,000 dairyfarmer shareholders. Fonterra exports 95% of their New Zealand-made dairy products to more than 140 countries.

 Roche Diagnostics is investing 136 million euros in a research, development & production site in Penzberg, Germany. The fundswill be applied to construct a flexible building for Roche Diagnostics. The new construction will accomodate laboratories and production areas for the Roche Applied Science and Roche Professional Diagnostics businesses. The unit will be used by both the Development and Production sections. The site will be manufacturing products ranging from biotech constituents for immunodiagnostics and the life-science market through to complete immunodiagnostic test kits from 2010. Such test kits are used in diagnostic systems such as COBAS and Elecsys globally.