Jane Lai
ALTHOUGH it has already become difficult for Shenzhen residents to buy milk powder in Hong Kong because of the high demand, the situation worsened recently as fears rose over domestic leather milk.
In the past two weeks, many supermarkets and pharmacies in Hong Kong had run out of milk powder, creating a shortage after an increasing number of mainland Chinese went there to buy milk powder.
The melamine scandal has already dampened a lot of people s confidence of domestic milk powder and the leather milk is just pushing Chinese parents away from domestic markets. We have to protect our babies, said Yan Qiqian who goes to Hong Kong twice a month for milk powder.
Most American milk powder products were sold to mainland Chinese and many customers bought several boxes at a time, salespersons at several Watsons and Bonjour stores in Mong Kok said Saturday.
Mead Johnson s has long been one of the most popular brands for Chinese parents and its milk powder has seen the largest demand and subsequently the shortest supply at these supermarkets and pharmacies. The Dutch brand Friso had experienced a similar situation.
In response, Watsons has recently restricted the sales of milk powder cans to a single customer to three a day of Mead Johnson s and Friso, while ParkNShop has limited the number to two per day for all milk powder brands.
Thank goodness, we asked friends to bring us two boxes of Mead Johnson s earlier this month. If the situation continues, we could buy another brand for our baby, young mother Amy Yao said Sunday.
In contrast, there were sufficient supplies of Japanese milk powder products because of their relatively higher prices, the retailers said.
The popularity of milk powder sales in Hong Kong has significantly boosted the number of online milk powder retailers, especially on Taobao, one of the most popular shopping Web sites in the country.
These retailers spend a lot of time visiting supermarkets and pharmacies in Hong Kong in search of popular milk powder products which are then sold online for higher prices.
The city market supervision administration said Feb. 17 that it would soon launch inspections of leather milk after a number of dairy companies in the country had been found to have added protein powder extracted from hydrolyzed leather waste to enrich the protein content of milk products.
