IT'S been nearly six weeks since the global melamine food scare hit Singapore, with the discovery of the tainted Yi Li yoghurt iced bar sold here.
Since then, it's been one dirty product after the other: Cadbury chocolate products, the unfortunately-named Si Lang (which means "dead man" in Hokkien) potato crackers, Dutch Lady milk, and now Julie's biscuits.
The latest announcement by the Agri-Food and Veterinary Authority (AVA) that some made-in-Malaysia biscuits are tainted, most likely because of their use of tainted raising agent, now raises questions of how far the contamination has insinuated itself into our food chain.
Now, it’s not just milk from China that can contains melamine – China-sourced raising agents like ammonium bicarbonate, which are used widely to make confectioneries all over the world, are at risk too. Meanwhile, other countries have been raising alarms almost daily over the most innocuous of foods from egg powder to frozen beans.
What’s a consumer in Singapore to do?
Well, for starters, having more information on what’s safe to eat would be useful.
Presently, the AVA has only told us what is tainted, and have yet to release a list of products which have tested clean, despite having tested most of the 4,000-odd items collected.
As a result, both importers and the public are still left in the dark, with companies running up losses on unsold products every day, and consumers growing more jittery about all kinds of food, even with a ban on sales of all China dairy products.
It’s understandable why the AVA is holding back on releasing the information prematurely, though. From what I understand, the agency tests multiple batches and while preliminary tests may prove a product clean, subsequent tests on other batches may prove otherwise.
In fact, this is exactly what happened with Malaysian biscuits: Two weeks ago they had declared them safe, but had to do an abrupt about-turn on this position with the discovery of the 17 tainted Malaysian products.
Still, one can’t help but wonder if more could be done to make the process quicker and efficient. For instance, could not more money be also funnelled into boosting the AVA’s current resources and hiring more analysts and equipment, so that testing could be expedited more quickly?
Also, the government announced five weeks ago that it plans to set up a new forensic unit within the AVA to keep a lookout for possible future contaminations. But as of now we still have not heard when exactly this unit will be set up, how much will be put into it, how many people it will employ, and how effectively it can stop contaminated food from entering our shores.
Given the number of minor food scares erupting globally on an almost daily basis, surely this project should be accelerated, and more details made public to assure consumers?
The more information that gets out faster, the more light can be shone into an issue that is curdling more every day.