PRODUCT SAFETY and RECALLS in Southeast Asia and Malaysia

Planning for your upcoming full moon festival? Bakeries have begun stocking up moon cakes - including the one with egg yolk and of course double egg yolk filling. Charming!!!  There are now many contemporary moon cakes like the ones with chocolate and strawberry filling, crusts made from jelly instead of the traditional pastry. My favourite is still the lotus seed!  But those who do like the egg yolk filling - beware! Read on why......... Century egg is known as preserved egg, hundred-year egg, thousand-year egg, thousand-year-old egg, and millennium egg. In Mandarin, it is also known as Pidan. It is a Chinese cuisine ingredient made by preserving duck, chicken or quail eggs in a mixture of clay, ash, salt, lime, and rice hulls for several weeks to several months, depending on the method of processing. Through the process, the yolk becomes a dark green, cream-like substance with a strong odor of sulphur and ammonia, while the white becomes a dark brown, tran...

Malaysia’s food import is said to cost more than RM30 billion. This means a large amount of food we consume is imported; from vegetables and fruits to processed food. In the wake of global food safety scandals from melamine to clostridium contamination of milk to Listeria in apples, the global food supply chain has been constantly challenged – so is consumer confidence in the integrity of the food supply chain.  Some food safety experts call for increased local production and less dependence on imported food. But does this actually improve food safety and consumer confidence? Imported or local - where exactly does our food come from, and how can we make sure it is safe? How Do We Protect Our Food Supply? Whilst consumers need to know what they eat and whether it’s safe or otherwise, labelling can only communicate so much. In the product safety business there is phrase we use:  The people with the greatest knowledge and resources of solving the problem in the product...

In 2013, there was a wide scale recall of infant formula due to botulinum toxin contamination and before that there was the horsemeat scandal. That year consumers' confidence in the safety and security of the global food supply chain was severely challenged. Almost every year, some form of contamination and safety scandals happen in some parts of the world resulting in a spate of recalls globally costing consumers, retailers, manufacturers and government millions of dollars. Food production has been anything other than straight forward and simple. A complex mixture of preservatives in prepared food, a complex mixture of inputs such as pesticides and fertilizers in fresh produce and a concoction of inputs in the form of hormones in animal produce have added a lot of confusion and distaste among consumers.  Many of us do not know what we are eating anymore. What is the difference between chocolate milk and chocolate flavoured milk? When milk is considered a wholeso...