A staple, next to rice, of Chinese cuisine are the warm buns that are daily sold in supermarkets. However, The Shanghai Shenglu Food Company, a bun provider to many supermarkets, has begun to recycle stale buns through a process of re-steaming. With china being the greatest producer of pollutants in the world, many companies have been desperately trying to become more sustainable on a country wide scale. But have they gone too far by recycling food? According to Jason Yip, the answer is yes.
I agree with Jason on this discussion of operations and ethics. There is a high demand for this low cost snack, however by choosing to recycle their product, it has defiantly hurt the brand image that is associated with The Shanghai Shenglu Food Company. Although they may have chose to take this course of action as a way to appear more sustainable and decrease production costs, this is also a matter of ethics. These business ethics are surrounding the underlying promise to sell products that do no harm a consumer. It has been tough for many Chinese company’s to survive given the competitive food markets in China, however sacrificing quality is not the route to take.
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