恒天然再下注中国 誓做放心奶粉

HONG KONG — Six years ago, when tainted infant formula killed six babies in China and sickened 300,000, one of the biggest foreign investors in the sector was caught by surprise.

香港——六年前，当有毒的婴儿配方奶粉导致中国6名婴儿死亡、30万名婴儿患病时，中国婴儿配方奶粉行业最大的外国投资者之一被打了个措手不及。

The investor, the Fonterra Cooperative Group of New Zealand, one of the world’s largest dairy companies, had put millions of dollars into a partnership with the Sanlu Group, a Chinese maker of infant formula that was one of several found to have mixed an industrial chemical into milk powder to artificially raise protein readings.

这个投资者便是全世界最大的乳制品公司之一、新西兰恒天然集团(Fonterra Cooperative Group)。在中国婴儿配方奶粉生产商三鹿集团等几家企业为了人为提高蛋白质含量，在乳制品中掺加了一种工业用化学制剂，在这种做法被发现前，恒天然集团已与三鹿集团建立合作关系，并投入了数亿美元。

Sanlu was declared bankrupt, and four of its executives were imprisoned. Fonterra was forced to write down the entirety of its investment of 200 million New Zealand dollars, or about $167 million at current exchange rates, in the Chinese venture.

三鹿宣布破产，四名高管入狱。恒天然集团被迫减记投进这家中国企业的全部2亿新西兰元（约合10亿元人民币），按当前汇率计算，约为1.67亿美元。

Yet on Wednesday, Fonterra became the latest foreign company to make a new bet that it could turn a profit by bringing safer food to China. The company said it would spend more than $500 million in a deal with the Beingmate Baby and Child Food Company, a Chinese manufacturer of infant formula. A day earlier, Kohlberg Kravis Roberts, an American private equity giant, announced an investment of about $400 million in China’s largest chicken breeder, Fujian Sunner Development, in a deal intended to improve food safety and quality.

但周三，恒天然成了最新一家重新下注的外国企业，希望能通过给中国带来更安全的食品而获利。该公司表示将在与中国婴儿配方奶粉生产商贝因美婴童食品股份有限公司达成的协议中出资逾5亿美元。此前一天，美国私募股权巨头科尔伯格-克拉维斯-罗伯茨公司(Kohlberg Kravis Roberts)宣布将通过一项旨在改善食品安全和质量的协议，向中国最大的鸡饲养企业福建圣农发展股份有限公司注资约4亿美元。

“China is a completely different environment now; Beingmate is a completely different partner,” Theo Spierings, the chief executive of Fonterra, said on Wednesday in response to questions from reporters about the Sanlu episode, according to Reuters. “We are very focused on learning from the past and moving on to the future.”

路透社报道称，恒天然首席执行官西奥·施皮林斯(Theo Spierings)周三在回应记者有关三鹿事件的问题时表示，“中国现在的环境完全不同，贝因美也是一个完全不同的合作伙伴。我们非常注重吸取经验和教训，面向未来。”

Food safety scandals occur with disturbing frequency in China. This week alone, according to reports in the state-run news media: The authorities seized more than 30,000 tons of chicken feet, a common menu item in China, that had been contaminated by a hydrogen peroxide cleaning agent; and in Zhejiang Province, 17 people were in court on accusations of selling 38 tons of dog meat — consumed in parts of the country — that had been poisoned when the animals were slaughtered with cyanide or overdoses of anesthetics.

在中国，食品安全丑闻出现的频率令人担忧。据官方新闻媒体报道，仅在本周，当局就查封了3万多吨被一种过氧化氢清洁剂污染过的鸡爪。在中国，鸡爪是一道常见菜品。在浙江，17人在法庭上被控销售了38吨有毒的狗肉——中国部分地区的民众喜食狗肉——那些狗是被氰化物或过量麻醉剂药死的。

The challenge confronting big foreign food companies in China is how to ensure that their standards are enforced by all workers at all stages of the food supply chain. Ignorance can be a more common problem than outright deception, experts say.

大型外国食品公司在中国面临的挑战是，如何确保食品供应链上所有环节的所有工作人员都执行它们的标准。专家称，相比于彻底的欺骗，无知是一个更普遍的问题。

“Most of the time it’s not that something is being hidden, it’s more that the people are not aware of the standards that Western companies expect,” said Sébastien Breteau, the chief executive of AsiaInspection. The company conducts spot checks on all kinds of factories in China on behalf of the companies they supply, and among food factories, the failure rate for inspections so far this year has been more than 50 percent.

“大部分时候，不是隐瞒了什么，更多的是人们没意识到西方公司期待的标准，”亚洲品质检验有限公司(AsiaInspection)首席执行官塞巴斯蒂安·布勒托(Sébastien Breteau)说。该公司代表接受供货的企业，对包括食品厂在内的中国所有工厂进行抽查。今年，截至目前的不合格率超过50%。

“What I’ve seen,” Mr. Breteau said, “when you sit down in a factory and you explain what matters for a client, if you train them over more demanding standards in terms of manufacturing, then they catch up with it very quickly.”

“我发现，”布勒托说，“当你坐在工厂里解释什么东西对客户来说很重要时，如果你对他们进行更多生产标准方面的培训，他们会很快赶上。”

Although food companies with foreign backing are often financially stronger and are perceived as having higher quality and safety standards, some prominent lapses in China have shown that such companies can still run into problems. Fonterra’s investment in Sanlu was an early example. Last week, the American food producer H. J. Heinz recalled several batches of baby cereal products after they were discovered to contain high levels of lead.

虽然有外国背景的食品公司在财务方面往往更有优势，而且也被认为拥有更高的质量和安全标准，但是中国一些突出的失检现象说明，此类公司还是会出问题。恒天然公司对三鹿的投资就是一个较早的案例。上周，美国食品生产商亨氏(H. J. Heinz)则召回了几批含铅量超标的婴儿米粉。

And last month, the OSI Group, an American-owned supplier for McDonald’s, KFC and other fast-food chains, became the subject of an investigation by the police and food safety officials in Shanghai. A local television station had broadcast a program accusing OSI employees of doctoring labels to extend expiration dates on chicken and beef products and showed footage seemingly of workers scooping up meat from the floor and putting it back on conveyor belts for processing.

上个月，作为麦当劳(McDonald’s)、肯德基(KFC)和其他快餐连锁店供应商的福喜集团（OSI Group，其母公司为美国欧喜集团）成了上海警方和食品安全官员的调查对象。一个当地电视台的节目谴责了福喜员工修改鸡肉和牛肉产品的商标以延长其保质期的行为，还播放了一些视频资料，画面中，工作人员似乎把掉在地上的肉捡了起来，扔回传送带进行加工。

For OSI, which is based in Aurora, Ill., and had been known for its industry-leading operations and quality control, the episode was jarring. In response to food safety concerns in China, it had invested hundreds of millions of dollars building a chicken-meat supply chain in the country that included a feed mill, hatcheries and slaughtering operations. In the United States, it focuses on processing meat that is purchased from other suppliers.

欧喜集团总部设在伊利诺伊州奥罗拉，一向以业内领先的业务和质量控制闻名，对于它而言，这件事的影响很大。为了回应中国的食品安全问题，它还投资数百万美元在中国修建了一座鸡肉供应厂，其中包括一座饲料加工厂、几座孵化场和屠宰场。公司在美国基本只会对购自其他供应商的肉进行加工。

In the Fonterra deal, which is subject to regulatory approvals and calls for it to take a 20 percent stake in Beingmate, the two companies will import infant formula ingredients from Fonterra’s dairies and manufacturing sites in New Zealand, Australia and Europe for sale in China.

在恒天然的交易中——公司目前正在接受管理机构审批并计划购买贝因美20%的股份——两家公司将从恒天然位于新西兰、澳大利亚和欧洲的奶制品厂和工厂进口婴儿配方材料，然后在中国出售。

“Extensive due diligence has taken place from both sides,” said Mr. Spierings of Fonterra, “and we have made arrangements on governance very clear.”

“双方都在进行大规模的尽职调查，”恒天然的施皮林斯说，“而且我们在管理上有很明确的约定。”

Experts say that China’s food industry tends to be highly competitive and to have low profit margins, meaning that businesses can be tempted to skip steps to save money, in some cases turning a blind eye to possible dangers to consumers.

专家表示，中国的食品行业的竞争越来越激烈，而且利润空间很小，这意味着各企业很可能会为了省钱而略过一些步骤，有时甚至会对可能伤害消费者的现象视而不见。

“Producing food as a business is not the same as producing T-shirts,” said Peter Karim Ben Embarek, a food safety scientist at the World Health Organization in Geneva who was previously based in China. “If you cut corners making T-shirts, some customers might be upset, but if you do it with chickens, you might end up killing people.” He added: “You have a bit of a Wild West situation where the public oversight is still lacking in terms of on-the-ground implementation.”

“生产食品与制造T恤不一样，”日内瓦世界卫生组织(World Health Organization)的食品安全科学家彼得·卡里姆·本·安巴雷克(Peter Karim Ben Embarek)说。他以前曾在中国工作。“如果你做T恤时偷工减料，有些顾客可能会很失望，但是如果你在加工鸡肉时这样做，最后可能就会害死人。”他还说：“这里的情况有点像美国原来的西大荒，在实际操作过程中仍然缺乏公众监督。”

Gao Guan, the deputy secretary of the China Meat Association, said one problem is that China does not have enough food inspectors.

中国肉类协会(China Meat Association)副秘书长高观说，其中一个问题是中国没有足够的食品检查员。

“The level of regulation and enforcement is too low,” Mr. Gao said. He cited recurring problems at meat processors, which can be reckless in their pursuit of profit. “If you rely on the individual processors, then you will never be able to enforce safety standards, because everybody is just trying to make fast money.”

“监管和执行水平太低，”高观说。他指出，肉类加工厂问题频出，它们很可能会不计后果地追逐利润。“如果你去信任个别的加工商，就永远无法落实食品安全标准，因为都在图短期的利益。”