China’s second largest insurer is backing a retailer’s move to offer free insurance to customers who buy infant milk powder in what is a first of its kind.
Showing the lengths which companies are going to address concerns about food safety in China, Suning Commerce Group Ltd, which owns the Redbaby chain of stores, told Reuters it had launched the policy last week, backed by Ping An Insurance Group.
The policy stipulates that if a brand of milk powder is recalled, customers who bought cans from any Redbaby store or its e-commerce website would be paid up to 2,000 yuan (NZ$387) per can, with payments capped at 100,000 yuan.
According to its e-commerce site, Redbaby stocks milk formula from multinationals including Mead Johnson Nutrition, Nestle SA, Danone SA as well as brands made by China's New Hope Nutritional Foods Co in partnership with New Zealand's Synlait Milk Ltd.
Along with detailed nutritional information, the website also highlights the expiry date of each can of formula.
Suning said it was giving the insurance away for free for the first 40,000 cans of baby formula sold. After that, customers can buy the insurance online, Reuters reports.
Concerns about the safety of baby milk powder came to the fore in 2008 when thousands of infants fell sick and six died after an industrial chemical was added to raise the apparent protein content of certain products.
Last year, New Zealand’s Fonterra faced a botulism scare in its milk powder exported to China which turned out to be a costly false alarm.
