Child Safety: Consumers need solutions. What is the solution for determining country of origin? COO?

Right now I personally don’t care if the food coming out of China is safe; my main concern is whether the food on the grocery store shelves where my family shops is safe and contains or may contain melamine. Period.

From a consumer standpoint trying to determine the country of origin (COO) is next to impossible. All of this is exasperating to say the least. One of our readers, Harry Scanlan pointed out a new phone by Google called the Android Phone. It has the ability to read a bar code, to access Google and then provides some information for what appears to be price comparison. Thanks Harry this is a step in the right direction. It’s still not what we are ultimately looking for but getting closer. For those of you who missed it here is the YouTube link to see how the Android Phone works.

Android Scanner Application

After determining the Android didn’t provide enough information I searched online and was unable to come up with a consumer model that is portable, not expensive and can provide the COO information.

So now I’ve written to Walmart and HyVee Grocery stores and asked if they intend to offer consumers a bar code reader while shopping in their stores. Hopefully sometime this week I’ll have some answers from these stores.

Shanghai Daily News reported on China’s latest efforts to control food quality. More than likely it won’t work. I say it won’t work because China continues to sugar coat the governments involvement in the melamine food poisoning scandal by saying the government acted quickly to alert the public, when in fact all evidence points towards hiding it in favor of the Olympic games.  The latest toll has the number of sickened infants at just fewer than 300,000.

“China says 300,000 babies sickened by tainted milk

By GILLIAN WONG

BEIJING (AP) — China has dramatically raised the toll from its tainted milk powder scandal, saying six babies likely died and 300,000 were sickened, figures that back up months of complaints from parents and show the government is beginning to acknowledge the scale of the crisis.”

If you want to begin the process of building consumer confidence start offering real solutions, not propaganda. If the big grocers like HyVee, Wal-Mart and Target want market share, then let them provide a solution to the consumer on how to interpret the bar code to determine the country of origin. The first to offer this solution will attract business. The solution we want to see is MADE IN AMERICA.