Food Processing - September 2007 - (Page 13)

E D I T O R ’ S P L AT E SEPTEMBER 2007 • Volume 68, No. 09 www.foodprocessing.com 555 W. Pierce Road, Ste. 301, Itasca, IL 60143 Phone: (630) 467-1300 • Fax: (630) 467-1179 The Chinese pavilion at the IFT Food Expo was like a ghost town. EDITORIAL EDITOR IN ChIEF MANAgINg EDITOR NEWS & TRENDS MANAgINg EDITOR-DIgITAL DAVE FuSARO dfusaro@putman.net DAVID FEDER, R.D. dfeder@putman.net DIANE TOOPS dtoops@putman.net JILL RuSSELL jrussell@putman.net The loneliest guy at the IFT show TEChNICAL EDITOR MARk ANThONy, Ph.D. PLANT OPERATIONS EDITOR MIkE PEhANICh PACkAgINg EDITOR kATE BERTRAND CONNOLLy DAVID JOy hOLLIS AShMAN, JACquELINE BECkLEy REPRINTS MARkETINg CLAuDIA STAChOWIAk MANgAgER FOSTER REPRINTS 4295 Ohio Street, Michigan City, IN 46360 866-879-9144, Fax: 219-561-2019 claudia@fostereprints.com REguLAR CONTRIBuTORS REguLATORy CONSuMER uNDERSTANDINg T hey looked like the Maytag repairman. Actually several rows of Maytag repairmen (and women), sitting in their booths with nothing to do, cer- tainly no one coming over to talk to them. The July Institute of Food Technologists Food Expo must have been a painful experience for the importers and suppliers of Chinese ingredients. They had their own pavilion, for better or worse concentrating them in one area, but it was like a ghost town. “Compared with last year, this is not so great,” said Wen Zhang, owner of Zhong Ya Chemical (USA) Ltd., Piscataway, N.J. “Several people [potential customers] talked to me about their concerns over the ingredients – how we do quality control and documentation. “Many of the other [Chinese] exhibitors told me the same thing. They did not have many visitors. They did not have a good show. They knew people were worried about the Chinese ingredients.” Zhang and his company are not newcomers. They’ve been in the States 12 years, importing and distributing ascorbic acid, monosodium glutamate, sorbates and other food ingredients, as well as a few industrial chemicals and detergents. The American food industry has been his largest customer. He’s concerned, but not too worried. “We have relationships with many American companies. They understand our business and respect our quality control. Our office in China inspects carefully. We have good documentation. The products we import do not allow these issues. “But we also are told the Chinese government will do a better job. They cannot allow these things to happen. There will be more food safety because this hurts all Chinese companies. “It has been only a few Chinese companies that created these problems. Most of the Chinese companies are very careful. They have been exporting good products for several years. And not just to the United States. We all are afraid to lose business because of things like this,” concluded Zhang. I’ve heard from people on both sides of this fence. Some think the Chinese reaction is just window-dressing, that for a long time there will be shoddy workmanship and corners cut in a Wild West economy with 1.3 billion cheap workers and loads of money to be made as quickly as possible, sometimes before all the rules and safeguards are in place. On the other hand, in July they executed Zheng Xiaoyu, the former head of the national food and drug safety agency, for corruption. Executed him! Also a Wild West thing to do, but it was just that kind of frontier justice that probably hastened the settlement of our own Wild West. James Rice, a vice president at Tyson Foods, manager of the company’s China operations and a member of our Editorial Advisory Board, warned me against over-reacting. Food safety is one thing, he said, protectionism is another. You’ve got them in the right order, I said. In any discussion, food safety comes first. Everything else is a distant second. DESIGN & PRODUCTION gROuP ART DIRECTOR ART DIRECTOR ART DIRECTOR PRODuCTION MANAgER STEPhEN C. hERNER sherner@putman.net STEVE VANDEN hEuVEL svandenheuvel@putman.net JENNIFER DAkAS jdakas@putman.net ChRISTINA kAyALIk ckayalik@putman.net PUBLISHING PuBLIShER kAy ROSS-BAkER kross-baker@putman.net ADMINISTRATIVE STAFF PRESIDENT AND CEO JOhN CAPPELLETTI VICE PRESIDENT JuLIE CAPPELLETTI-LANgE VICE PRESIDENT OF CONTENT kEITh LARSON VICE PRESIDENT CIRCuLATION JERRy CLARk CIRCuLATION MANAgER PATRICIA DONATIu EDITORIAL ADVISORy BOARD ChERyL J. BALDWIN, Ph.D. Senior Scientist, kraft Foods gERRy gOMOLkA Vice President-Process Engineering The Stellar group Analyst, Ag Edwards & Sons Inc. Vice President-Engineering Sara Lee Foods National Food & Beverage Industry Leader, grant Thornton LLP ChRISTOPhER gROWE DAVE kRAMER DEXTER MANNINg WILLIAM MCCABE Vice President-Ice Cream, Smith Dairy DON NugENT JAMES RICE DARyL ThOMAS ELAINE WEDRAL, Ph.D. President/CEO, graceland Fruit Inc. VP & general Mgr.-China Operations, Tyson Foods Inc. Vice President-Marketing, herr Foods Inc. President (retired), Nestle R&D Center Dave Fusaro, Editor in Chief dfusaro@putman.net SEPTEMBER 2007 Food PRocESSing • 13 http://www.foodprocessing.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Food Processing - September 2007

Contents Editor's Plate Power Lunch NewsBites Regulatory Issues Rollout Food Biz Kids Product Spotlight Next-Generation Manufacturing Models Product Development Ingredients Packaging Show Previews New Product Profiles Toops Scoops

Food Processing - September 2007

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