ABSTRACT
Reviews of troubled brands are relatively commonplace (Trout 2001; Haig 2003; Hartley 2009), yet the reasons for failure noted by these authors tend not to focus on deliberate product contamination. The agri-food industry has been regularly affected in recent times by crises of both disease and food quality relating to microbiological, contaminant and animal disease issues (Knowles et al. 2007). Although these are sometimes localised, the prevalence of global sourcing has often led to market protection measures by competitor countries as with the UK BSE crisis of the 1990s (Lindgreen et al. 2009: xxv). Organisations in both developed and developing countries have shown errors of judgement and sometimes illegality in matters of food quality and safety. Pedregal and Luan (2009) explored the risks of passing offpowdered milk as fresh in Vietnam with severe consequences for brand development. This chapter investigates one such occurrence: that of the recent infant milk powder scandal in China and its consequences for both consumers and those companies in the infant milk powder industry. This was caused by the contamination of milk products with melamine, which was carried out to ensure (watered down) milk appeared to have more protein and thus yielded higher profits for sellers.
