New Zealand ministers respond to Fonterra milk scare in rare move
Economic Development Minister Stephen Joyce said officials had been sent to Fonterra premises in New Zealand and Australia to ensure the information the company supplied about a potentially fatal bug in some products used to make baby formula was accurate.
New Zealand moved to seize control of Fonterra’s response to a contaminated milk scare on Tuesday after criticising the dairy giant’s handling of a crisis which has tainted the country’s “clean, green” image.
Economic Development Minister Stephen Joyce said officials had been sent to Fonterra premises in New Zealand and Australia to ensure the information the company supplied about a potentially fatal bug in some products used to make baby formula was accurate.
It’s certainly pretty frustrating, that’s probably the most generous term I could use
Joyce acknowledged it was unusual for the government to take such a hands-on approach with a private company but said global consumers needed to regain confidence in New Zealand’s dairy industry, which accounts for a quarter of the country’s exports.
He said data Fonterra initially provided about the presence of a bacteria that can cause botulism had proved incorrect, leading to contradictory advice and confusion amid product recalls from China to Saudi Arabia.
“It’s certainly pretty frustrating, that’s probably the most generous term I could use,” Joyce told Radio New Zealand. “I’d have expected this information to have been available fairly quickly.”
He said about 90 per cent of the contaminated product had been found and Ministry of Primary Industry (MPI) officials hoped to use Fonterra’s product tracking records to locate the rest by Wednesday afternoon.
