China has launched a first e-sourcing system of its kind that could check the contents of baby formula and whether the formula is fake or real.
The electronic sourcing system for information on baby formula was launched for public use on Dec. 29 by the Guangdoing Food and Drug Administration of South China's Guangdong Province.
Women of China reported that under this new online platform, consumers can make more informed decisions when purchasing baby formula. Consumers can automatically inquire about the formula's ingredients, production place and date, and distribution places.
The consumer can also know if the formula is genuine or a knockoff. Further, it can inform the consumer of how many times the formula's information has been checked by other parents. Consumers can even know if there had been problems with the formula in the past and if it was returned by other consumers.
While the online system is a breakthrough and can be lauded, the system is nowhere near perfect. For formulas produced outside Guangdong, customers cannot access information of where the materials have been produced. This defeats the purpose of allowing consumers make more informed decisions on the baby formula they buy.
The system, however, is an advance for the country. China is the world's biggest baby formula market, as parents spent billions of dollars on it for 2013 alone. Compared to the rest of the world, the number of mothers breastfeeding in China is relatively the low.
For the past years, consumers' demand for more information on the milk formula they are buying increased, following a formula crisis in 2008 that ended with thousands of babies poisoned with melamine.
"Consumers' awareness of the quality of baby formula has increased a lot since then," an expert shared.