Sanlu Milk Powder Accident

Sanlu Milk Powder Accident

   The “Sanlu milk powder incident” is an important incident which shocked the entire country at that time. Sanlu is the biggest milk powder company in China which control the whole milk powder market. On September 8th of the year 2008, there were 14 infants lived in Gansu province infected with kidney stone. Then, Sanlu was found the melamine ingredient in the milk powder in order to increase the protein. However, Sanlu didn’t know this behavior would cause serious consequences.

    The ethical dilemmas were profit of the company versus consumers’ benefits. In this incident, there are some stakeholders to take into consideration. Sanlu which is a corporation produce the milk powder. This company was at risk because the incident made its reputation destroyed and this company were facing bankruptcy. Also, consumers who ate Sanlu milk powder were ill and some were dead. Quality and Technology Supervision Bureau which tests the ingredient said they didn’t test these fake milk powder. For employees in the corporation, they would lose their jobs if the company is bankruptcy. When this incident was happened, Chinese milk industry was impacted because many countries stopped to buy Chinese dairy products. Besides, the government and the media were also stakeholders in this incident.

The first alternative options for the company to choose is that Sanlu could try to conceal the serious consequences by cooperating with the public social media. This option can keep the corporation’s benefits, keep a part of customers and minimize costs. However, this option is cheating the customers and maybe it will cause more infants infected with kidney stone. Second, the corporation can fully disclose that they added the melamine in their products, stop doing business for internal rectification, and also destroy all products. If the company choose this option, people who added the melamine may be in jail and the company will go bankrupt, but in this way, customers can be safe and the quality of milk powder industry will be improved. Third, Sanlu can pass the buck to the dairy farmer, pretend they know nothing. In this way, if they insist that it is dairy farmers’ fault and then make an announcement that they change the supplier, consumers will still buy their products. The company can still keep benefits. However, Sanlu may be sued by the dairy farmer and lose the current supply chain.