Whey safety scare report due, Minister tells Chamber

Media Release

Wednesday 28 August 2013

Whey safety scare report due, Minister tells Chamber

The Ministry for Primary Industries will later today issue a technical verification report surrounding the whey protein food safety scare, Trade Minister Tim Groser told the Wellington Employers’ Chamber of Commerce this morning.

He said the report would say the first phase in the response – isolating, tracing, identifying, and removing potentially contaminated infant formula from the food supply chain – was complete.

He would not elaborate on what the announcement would be. “I think the report will speak for itself … boy, is that going to be an exercise in transparency. Not many countries would put the whole story out there like we will.”

He told over 100 Chamber members that the second phase would focus on containing the commercial implications of the scare “which always had to come second to dealing with the immediate problem”.

“The right long-term strategy to contain the real economic issue, which is our reputational risk, will be determined very largely by how we handle the short-term and immediate issue.”

Discussions he had had in Brunei last week with 16 trade and commerce ministers, including China’s Commerce Minister, “only strengthened our conviction that that is the right approach.”

“People are watching our response very carefully. I think they are satisfied with the response but they have questions. And the questions they have in their mind are the questions we have in our mind, and the inquiries that are under way – once we have the technical verification report published later today – I think they will provide the answers.”

“People should be very careful in running too fast to conclusions. We don’t yet know what went wrong. We don’t yet know if it was dangerous to health. We’ll find that answer out over the next few days as tests from international certifying laboratories come in.

“Everyone should hang fire until the facts are on the table.”

He said some damage had been done but he believed it would be able to be limited.

“I think we can make mistakes, of course, but the speed of our response and the quality of our response, and the seriousness with which it’s obvious the New Zealand Government has taken this issue, I think will serve us well as we work our way through the problems.

He said the Government was constantly in touch with the companies concerned, some of which were “absolutely suffering”.

“But we have to keep our eye on the long game. This country has been serving high-quality, safe food to families around the world for over 100 years, and that capacity did not disappear in one false move. We will rebuild this.”

He said it had been a sharp lesson in risk management.

“One thing we don’t need to wait for an inquiry to tell us is that government agencies, companies, and people involved in our trading relationships need to lift their game. They need to lift their game in emerging markets that are central to our economic future.”

“We’re seeing explosive growth in these emerging markets and some, certainly not all, of the problems we have had result from speed bumps in our road.”

Employer’s Chamber of Commerce CEO Raewyn Bleakley said Mr Groser’s comments were reassuring to the companies that had suffered and to the New Zealand economy.

“This has clearly been a hard hit but it’s reassuring that we are seeing progress in coming out of it.”

ENDS

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