Noon International: Food Trading Import Export

I have to admit, I have a problem understanding how Maximum Residue Limits for Pesticides or Tolerances for Pesticides are estabablished and I have even more trouble understanding why tey vary from country to country.

Allow me to use juse one pesticide and two vegetables as an example: Methamidophos will be the pesticide and Beans and Cabbage will be the vegetables.

The tolerance for this particular pesticide according to CODEX which is suposed to be the international standard is:

1mg/kg for Beans, except broad beans and soya beans
0.5 mg/kg for Cabbage

On the other hand if we look at the standards set by the Australian New Zealand Food Authority for Methamidophos we find the following:

<0.01 mg/kg for Beans (basically NIL)
1 mg/kg for Cabbage

Finally the EPA in the USA

1 mg/kg for Beans

On the Cabbage I found they qoute as follows: “Because there are no active registrations for uses of either methamidophos or acephate on broccoli, cabbage, cumcumber, eggplant, and melon, the associated tolerances in 40 CFR 180.315 are no longer needed and should be revoked. Therefore, EPA is proposing to revoke the tolerance in 40 CFR 180.315 on broccoli, cabbage, eggplanat, and melon.”

I am not quite sure if this means the tolerance is <0.01 mg/kg (once again basically NIL), I’ll presume it is since tolerances 40 CFR 180.315 didn’t list cabbage.

(Please note I am using <  0.01 mg/kg since most laboratories can’t detect below this level).

Alledgedly the standards are based on the consumption of a particular vegetable in a particular country, so in other words Australians will eat 100% less cabbage than the international standard and about 9900% less than the USA (if my assumption is correct and the tolerance is < 0.01 mg/kg).

Does this make sense to you? I’m really confused by now, what if you are a cabbage aficianado living in Australia or NZ, bad luck my friend!!

I would really like to see in the future standards that apply internationally and that really look after the consumers in our global village.

JAC

Technorati Tags:   International Standards for Pesticide Residue Limits, MRL, EPA, Australian New Zealand Food Authority, CODEX, Tolerances for Pesticides, Global Village 

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I just recently got an email from one of our suppliers with concerns about the future business. In the email, which I will paraphrase, he states following:

“All the raw material prices went up a lot recently in China and Taiwan. Prices of bread in China has risen 40% due to higher flour prices. Prices of flour doubled in Taiwan. All of the other foods such as soybeans, pork, poultry, sugar have risen sharply. Basically all foodstuffs have risen in price. Many of the restaurants, fastfood chains etc were forced to adjust there selling prices recently. One of the recent news article was concerning Kentucky Fried Chicken and its price increase to take effect Aug. 1, 2007 and this is only one of many examples.This means most all of the foodstuff are at higer prices.

Understand all kinds of products are faced with the energy issue. Due to higher prices of oil these years it impacts all kinds of products now. Worldwide weather has also been abnormal these last 2 – 3 years, it makes for harvest shortages on many agricultural products. I beleive you read all of these kinds of information from TV, newspapers and magazines and aware of the situation better than me.

We don’t know and cannot imagine how the situation will develop in the future. It is really beyond my abilities to guess or to imaging what the situation will be. We in the frozen food business make only a small gross profit when our business is smooth. On the other hand, we lose huge money and lose buyers when there is a shortage which cause non-delivery of goods.

The world has changed a lot beyond my experiences. As a long term business friend, I need your comments on how to proceed for our future business in a conservative and safe manner. “

This is the dilemma we face in the frozen food industry, it is not unique to China, nor to the frozen food industy, but a global problem for all at the low end of the supply chain. The industries at the low end are squeezed constantly by the buyers of such large corporations as Walmart, Costco, Target etc. In our frozen vegetable industry prices have been flat for years here in the states, and product that I now source in China is cheaper today then it was 10 years ago. How can that be when labor cost have risen dramatically, engery cost are soaring, and currency appreciation to name a few? The reason is becuase of the squeezing of the profit margins. Yes we have improved efficiencies but this only goes so far. We are at the point where many business will go bankrupt if they are not able to pass on the increased cost of production. Actually, this is the first year here in the states, that the processors have been able to increase prices of corn, peas etc. The main reason is probably due to the ethanol issue. Many farmers have switched to growing corn for ethanol because of the higher prices they can receive.

As for my China friend what can I say? The reality is that there are so many China frozen food suppliers, that are all competiting for the same business that they end up beating each other on price to get the business. I believe there will be a shake out of the industry as the weaker players will end up closing their doors and things will return to normal, what ever that may be. Or perhaps with the latest China food scares, customers will demand to do business with the frozen factories that have met more strigent qualifiations and end up paying a premium to buy from these faclities. Today with the internet many people just buy from someone they don’t know and they have never inspected the faciltiy. On my many visits to factories in China I have seen product packed for reputable retailers here in the states, in factories that are very very marginal and would be high risk faclities in my estimation.

Once again, this is why we at Noon International, make it our business to know the companies we work with and know that they are meeting the highest qualtity standards. Do we have problems? Yes, but we all have problems. The key is we recognize the problems and make changes to improve. This is the way it should be, a constant never ending process of improvement.

In the end it has to be a win-win for all parties from the very beginning to the very end (the end user, you and me the consumer).

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