It is indubitable that China is experiencing an astonishing speed of economic growth and the corporations devote a lot of energy to the soar of GDP. The problem is, however, the ethics of the business seems gone while they are creating wealth. The food security has become one of the biggest issues that China is facing. Dating back to 2008, the Chinese dairy company Sanlu was reported that toxic melamine was added to their milk powder. The reason why Sanlu add melamine into milk is to make the protein level appear higher and their purpose is to reduce expenditure in order to raise the net profit. As a result, children who feed Sanlu milk powder suffered from kidney stone and even 13 of them died. To those businesses, complying with the laws and social custom seems not worthy of mention compared with maximizing profit.
In January, there is another scandal of food safety. Fonterra, a New Zealand dairy producer, has been exposed that their infant milk formula contain chemical ingredient. Theo Spierings, the chief executive of Fonterra, as the representative of Fonterra has already deeply apologized for their oversight. He also said “food safety, not only in China ,but also around the world , is our first and foremost interest.” What I’d like to say is that food safety represents the ethics of a business and it is the key criteria to judge the moral principle of that business.
