I currently own shares in two publicly-listed companies: one of them is Starbucks. I purchased Starbucks a few months ago, and it's slipped since then. It's a bad year to buy stocks — I know, I know. Now Starbucks says they have been affected by some of the milk recalls in China.

I don't drink coffee — gave it up in 1999 — but two months ago I decided to start tasting Starbucks' offerings. After all, if I own a part of their company, it helps to understand their product.

I started drinking soy lattes, and for about 3 weeks I drank at least one beverage from Starbucks each day (before I had to kick the caffeine habit and go through another week of withdrawal — that stuff is a drug!). What I noticed in the Beijing and Shanghai outlets I visited was that Starbucks' milk products were usually not being handled properly. When I was 17 years old I worked at TCBY in the United States — and it was drilled into us how to properly refrigerate any dairy or derivative products. But at the Chinese Starbucks outlets I visited I saw the milk containers often sitting out — neither in tubs of ice nor nestled safely in the refrigerators. On top of that, the soy milk was often being placed in mixing cups clearly stating they were for dairy milk. This is a problem for people who are Kosher, vegan, or lactose intolerant. I said something about it twice to Starbucks staff in Shanghai outlets on Nanjing Lu, and each time I got the same response: "This is what we always do". When I told a woman that I was sure there was a rule about not mixing non-dairy products in a dairy container, she told me, "You really know a lot about our company and rules!" I explained the health issues that could arise from the mixing of the dairy products, but she was incredulous.

I actually thought about blogging about the problem a few weeks ago, but I figured it was off-topic since it doesn't have anything to do with my company (this blog tries to stay topical to only this company, BDL Media). Now, I guess, I don't care — even though any negative publicity for Starbucks could hurt my shares even more. Some of our own media have talked about the milk problem and you can get more info from these sites in Chinese (this is how I keep it topical to our company):
三鹿召回致病奶粉
美国乳业加强产品质量管理

Now that Starbucks is focusing on dairy issues in China, maybe they can train their staff on better hygiene and food security issues too.

Disclosure: Starbucks was a client in the past when we helped with mobile and Web marketing campaigns.

Tags: advertising | coffee | dairy | marketing | milk | mobile | Starbucks

I'm the chairperson of the Amcham Shanghai I.T. Committee and we're having a joint event with the Legal Committee next Tuesday in Shanghai called "Development of Data Protection In China". It's open to both members and non-members, and the two speakers will be Grace Chen, a partner in the Corporate/Commercial Group of Bird & Bird law firm in Beijing and co-author of the China Q&A section in the PLC 2007/2008 Data Protection Handbook, and Ben Pasco, managing director of Legal Technologies Asia Pacific for Kroll Ontrack and professor of forensics at the China Institute of Defence, Science and Technology in Beijing. There is a new data security and privacy law that is rolling out soon in China, and it will affect direct marketers, advertisers, software companies, and anyone else that harbors data in China.

Last night I spent time at the opening night of the official Shanghai Oktoberfest — there are many Oktoberfest celebrations in Shanghai, but this is the one endorsed by the local government. We run and manage ShanghaiOktoberfest.com, which is the official website of the event and the festivities run for another ten days.

I've been a vegetarian for almost eight years. I don't drink milk and I don't eat eggs, but I eat fish about once every 6 weeks (when I am forced to in a social/business setting in China). I've tended to ignore all the troubles with Sanlu milk products because it just doesn't have any direct effect on me and what I eat. I'm sure that the problem associated with processed foods anywhere in the world are only the tip of the iceberg — most issues probably go unreported.

Tags: advertising | Amcham | American Chamber of Commerce | data privacy | data security | direct marketing | Internet advertising | Kroll | milk | milk powder | Oktoberfest | privacy | Sanlu | Shanghai | software | technology | vegetarian